

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, 


@w># 


UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 











. 





























\ 



























































* 









































. 





















- 


. 




- 

















. 
































. 






































y 












* • 


































































Vol. XI., No. 3. August 12, 1S93. Subscription Price, $1.50 

‘SIS* ^ ^ *9fr ^ ^ 


UNCLE SCIPIO 


ANDRE THEURIET 


Specially translated for Once a Week by 

E. P. ROBINS 


^ <Jg. ^ : 

Entered at the'Post-Offico at New York aa second-clasa matter. 

COLLIER, Publisher, 523 V/. 13th St„ N.Y. 


, Issued Semi-Monthly. 

V PETER FENELON 


•wmwrn 

HR 

Ml 

W 







Pears’ Soap does noth- 
ing but cleanse ; it has 
no medical properties, but 
brings back health and the 
color of health to many a 
sallow skin. Use it often. 
Give it time. 


MY 


UNCLE SCIPIO 


Br 

ANDRE' THEURIET 


Specially translated for Once a W eeic by 
E. P. ROBINS 


3J- 




New York 

PETER FENELON COLLIER 
1893 


2 - 


« 




Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1893, by 
Peter Fenelon Collier, 

in the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


CHAPTER I. 

Up to the time when I was ten years old my 
notions concerning* my uncle Scipio Mouginot 
were of the vaguest. The picture of him that 
rose before my youthful mind was blurred and 
dim, being simply that of an unknown relative 
who had his abode very far away, at Paris, and 
whose name, whenever it was mentioned in our 
family circle, was received with a contemptuous 
toss of the head. It was on a Sunday evening, 
in June, 1850, as I well remember, that I for 
the first time acquired a more distinct con- 
ception of this mysterious member of our 
family. The date of that ever-memorable 
evening is impressed upon my recollection the 
more indelibly that it also recalls a disagree- 
able circumstance that happened me during 
the day. The weather that Sunday was ideally 
fine : the sky was. cloudless, the sun shone 
brightly, a gentle wind from the east blew 
the dust in clouds along the Rue du Bourg. 
When the midday meal was concluded, I left 
the house in company with my cousin, Aristide 
Mouginot - Pechoin, my guardian’s son — a 
good boy, he was, as quiet and well-behaved 
as I was rude and turbulent. Grandma Pe- 

3 


4 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


choin presented us each with ten sous for our 
w r eek’s spending money, and my aunt gave us ^ 
reiterated injunctions not to absent ourselves 
from vespers. 

I can see ourselves now, just as we looked 
on that sunny afternoon, sauntering down the 
street side by side, dressed exactly alike, in 
black trousers, white waistcoats and those 
short English jackets that they used to call 
roundabouts. Aristide’s suit is new, however, 
while mine is threadbare and has lost its fresh- 
ness. As it is only one o’clock, we take the 
longest way to reach the church. When we 
reach the bank of the Marne and Khine Canal, 
which has been opened only recently, we sud- 
denly find ourselves in the midst of a crowd 
of pleasure-seekers, all in their Sunday best, 
gathered compactly around a large boat that 
has been freshly caulked and is decked out 
with flags and streamers. I drag Aristide 
along with me, and shouldering my way into 
thickest of the fray, there learn that the mas- 
ter of the boat, for a consideration of lifty cen- 
times, will give those who are so inclined an 
excursion on the canal. 

The bright sunshine and the laughing water 
conspire to whisper in my ear an invitation to 
play truant ; my boyish imagination takes fire 
at the idea of that adventurous voyage. I 
look at Aristide with eyes sparkling with 
eagerness. 

Ten sous ! ” I say to him ; “are you game 
for it ?.” 

But the cousin, who is a thrifty body where 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


5 


money is concerned, gives me a horrified look 
out of his big* round eyes, and with his pro- 
voking*ly virtuous air makes answer : 

“ How can you think of such a thing* ! And 
vespers ? — ” 

“ Oh, hang vespers ! There’s more fun to 
be had in the boat. Come along ! ” 

Aristide refuses resolutely to be tempted, and 
the firmness of his resistance makes me all the 
more determined to carry my caprice into exe- 
cution. I hand my ten-sou piece to the man 
whose duty it is to receive the money, and, as I 
jump on board the boat, shout to my cousin : 

“ I will meet you when church comes out. 
Wait for me, and be sure you don’t say any- 
thing to give me away ! ” 

The clums}^ barge, drawn by two tow-horses, 
glides sluggishly over the green bosom of the 
canal, the flags snap like a whiplash in the 
freshening breeze, and it is altogether a de- 
lightful sensation to feel one’s self floating be- 
tween the two banks with their bordering rows 
of plane trees, while overhead the swallows are 
sporting in the blue sky and the church bells, 
ringing the last summons for vespers, dash the 
delight of stolen joys with a tinge of keen re- 
morse. When the boat comes to a lock it stops 
for a moment, imprisoned between the lofty 
walls, the gates are opened, and the inrushing 
crystal tide sends gleams of sunlight dancing 
over the face of the dripping stonework. 

While the stoppage lasts the passengers step 
ashore and stretch their legs on the towpath. 
I follow their example, but when the steersman 


6 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


summons us to come aboard again it is seen that 
the boat, owing to the rise of water in the lock, 
sets much higher above the surface than she 
did before ; the step is too high for my short 
legs. A boatman, with the best intentions in 
the world, seizes me by the arm to assist me 
upward ; I make a desperate effort to pass my 
leg over the rail, when, confound the luck ! I 
feel the tender cloth of my trousers yielding at 
the seat beneath the strain. I give utterance to 
a cry of distress, the man in his disgust lets go 
my arm, and I am left lying on the stone cause- 
way, while the boat, with its cargo of laughing 
spectators, recedes and is lost to sight among 
the flaunting poppies that deck the banks. 

There I am, chapfallen and alone, exposed to 
the blinding sunshine of the towpath. I carry 
my hand to the place where my garment has 
served me so treacherously, and tremblingly 
proceed to acquaint myself with the extent of 
the disaster. The rent is of large dimensions, 
and with that ridiculous roundabout there is no 
way of concealing the corpus delicti. People 
cannot help noticing it ! And Aristide, who is 
to wait for me when church is dismissed ! how 
am I ever to keep my appointment with him, 
and exhibit myself before the congregation with 
my attire in such a state ? 

I attempt to repair damages with some pins 
that the gatekeeper’s wife gives me, but it is 
no use ; the cloth is too rotten, and the pins 
give way every time I move my legs, making 
the gaping wound still larger than it was be- 
fore. There is but one safe course left me, and 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


7 


that is to regain my home as quickly as possi- 
ble. Behold me, therefore, pursuing my melan- 
choly way cityward beneath the spreading 
plane trees that overarch the roadway. As 
long as I keep to the canal the experience is not 
such a very disagreeable trial ; the banks are 
deserted, and there is no one to witness my mor- 
tification, but before me lies Villotte, the smoke 
from whose chimneys is rising off yonder from 
behind its screen of trees, and there the side- 
walks are thronged with promenaders. The 
mere thought of it brings the blood in torrents 
to my cheeks. Shamefacedly I creep through 
the least frequented lanes and by-ways, hugging 
the walls, and so at last I come to the street on 
which faces the coachhouse of the Mouginot- 
Pechoin family. I steal in on tiptoe, silent as a 
mouse, and, invoking the cloak of obscurity to 
hide my shame and sorrow, await in the dark- 
ness of a disused lumber-room the advent of 
the twilight hour, when I know I shall hear old 
Adele summoning my uncle’s boarder, Lawyer 
Dieudonne Jacobi, to come to supper. 

Lawyer Jacobi is near-sighted, and, what is 
more, I know that he is not very observant. 
As Grandmother Pechoin says: “He looks 
within.” He is always the first one in the 
dining-room. I lay my plans to effect my en- 
trance m his company ; so doing I shall be 
safely seated, with my back to the wall, when 
the remainder of the family make their appear- 
ance — 

Ouf ! everything has passed off nicely in ac- 
cordance with my hopes and wishes, and now 


8 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


I am perched aloft on my high chair, in such 
a posture that no one can have any reason to 
suspect the damage sustained by the widest 
portion of my nether garment. The dining- 
room, a narrow, three-cornered apartment, 
is situated directly in the rear of the shop of 
my uncle Mouginot - Pechoin — who is the 
leading pharmacist of Villotte ; the only light 
it receives is afforded by a window of ground 
glass, the lower sash of which plays up and 
down in grooves, thus forming a sort of peep- 
hole through which cognizance may be taken 
of the happenings of the shop. Owing to the 
stifling heat the sash is raised this evening, 
and through the opening a view is obtained 
of the pharmacy, with its dazzlingly polished 
brass- work and its old pots and jars of im- 
maculately white earthenware ; and behind the 
great red and blue globes in the show-window 
we catch shadowy glimpses of the pedestrians 
on the sidewalk, who have left their houses 
to enjoy a stroll in the cool evening air. A 
lamp, with a ground-glass shade, diffuses an 
equable and yellow light throughout the room 
and illuminates the snowy cloth on which the 
repast is served. 

There are seven of us seated around the 
board, counting Arsene Camus, the appren- 
tice, who makes himself scarce as soon as the 
dessert is brought on. (That is an invariable 
rule that has never once been departed from 
since the Mouginot pharmacy has been in ex- 
istence and made a practice of receiving ap- 
prentices.) Facing the window that looks into 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


9 


the shop, in the first place, is Victor Mouginot, 
my uncle and guardian, a cold, phlegmatic, 
formal man of forty-eight, as inaccessible as 
the tight-locked closet where he bestows his 
poisons, and expressing himself always in the 
very briefest of sentences; a sternH-set, smooth- 
shaven, impenetrable face, in which the small 
gray eyes seem fixed in a stare of stony im- 
mobility; a rigid body, stiff and unbending as 
a ramrod, close-buttoned in an olive-colored 
frock coat, the long sleeves of which fall over 
a pair of fists as round and hard as one of 
his own pestles. At his righk sits Grand- 
mother Pechoin, a hale and stately old lady 
of seventy, who has had somewhat of renown 
as a beauty in her day, when Napoleon I. was 
emperor of France. The charm of feature 
is still to be observed beneath the lofty edi- 
fice of powdered hair, and the kindly eyes of 
lilac-blue, looking out from amid their enframe- 
ment of silvery locks, make one think of violets 
blooming beneath the snow. A circumstance 
worthy of note is that she cannot endure her 
son-in-law, whose automaton-like frigidity gives 
her the fidgets, and she has a way of saying 
that Victor Mouginot cannot go near a chim- 
ney but he extinguishes the fire. Aristide Mou- 
ginot, my cousin, occupies the place on the left 
hand of his father, of whose repulsive manner 
he is a successful imitator: he is an only son, an 
infant phenomenon, whose perfections are con- 
stantly being dinned in my ears. He sits up 
straight* on his stool, his napkin is always prop- 
erly tucked beneath his chin, he does not get 


10 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


gravy-spots on his <( best clothes,” he holds his 
tongue at table, and never asks for anything. 

I don’t see why he should, forsooth, when he 
is helped to everything there is. on the board ! 
He does not play in the street with the little 
blackguard boys, he never talks back ; in a 
word, he is perfect. 

But although he may be good — my cousin 
Aristide — he is not handsome. The great 
prominent ears, standing forth boldly on each 
side of his flaxen pate, are like the fins of a 
fish. His eyebrows are so thin that one might 
almost count the hairs ; he has white eyelashes, 
a pasty white complexion, and the regular 
Mouginot nose — the nose that runs in the 
family — which, in his case, has assumed the 
shape and size of a potato. 

At the other end of the table, opposite my 
guardian, my aunt Mouginot sits in state. 
She has the form and something of the impos- 
ing air of her mother, but has not her affability 
and power to please. She suffers from neu- 
ralgia and keeps her head muffled in a black 
shawl, within the folds of which is visible at 
times a long, bilious-looking face, with yellow 
eyes, a sharp nose and juiceless lips. Her ill- 
health has given her the acidity*, and some- 
thing of the appearance, of a lemon, added to 
which she is disposed to irony and is not over- 
charitable. She has a way of asserting her 
authority by emphatic gestures, and every 
movement she makes is attended by a loud 
jingling of the keys which she carries hung in 
a bunch from her belt. This harsh clank of 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 11 

steel has in the end impressed itself on my 
understanding as something inseparably con- 
nected with her personality, like the stridulous 
whirr of the locust or the sleep-murdering song 
of the mosquito, and I am conscious of a disa- 
greeable sensation crawling over me every 
time I hear it. I have my place on her left 
hand, where I am subjected to her immediate 
and pitiless supervision ; she never lets up on 
me for a moment, and every mouthful I eat is 
as gall and wormwood to me under the season- 
ing of her sarcastic comments. On Aunt Mou- 
ginot’s right, obsequiously loquacious and pro- 
fuse of small attentions, is my uncle’s boarder, 
Dieudonne . Jacobi, lawyer, a bachelor of fifty, 
who for fifteen years has been the friend and 
table companion of the family. 

M. Dieudonne is a tall man, blonde as to his 
hair and pink as to his complexion, with a 
pepper-and-salt beard and small eyes of a 
faded blue. Notwithstanding the maturity of 
his years he affects a boyish manner and tone 
of voice, which contrast oddly enough with his 
gray beard. He dresses in dark colors/and in- 
expensively, but still retains some youthful 
predilections, wearing turn-down collars a la 
Colin and bright-blue neckties with long stream- 
ing ends. Being blessed with an abundant flow 
of flowery language, he is a ceaseless talker ; 
he is addicted to using obscure and high- 
sounding phrases, empty as a well that has 
gone dry ; it matters not to him that they are 
entirely void of sense and meaning if he can but 
inflate them with tropes and metaphors. He 


12 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


delights to discourse of the soul and of the 
heavenly bodies, for he is of a somewhat mys- 
tical and sentimental turn, but is not unmindful 
of his material entity, of which he takes pre- 
cious good care. 

As he has but a limited income he is con- 
stantly worrying over the question of ways 
and means for the future, and the prospect 
of approaching old age makes him very close- 
fisted. He only takes dinner and supper with 
us, and old Adele, our solitary domestic, de- 
clares that the small loaf which is brought in 
for his early breakfast is made to last him four 
days. He is very devout, never failing to be 
present at early morning mass, where he takes 
a seat under the organ-loft, on the bench set 
apart for the poor — “ from motives of humil- 
ity,” he says, but in reality because the warden 
who hands around the plate turns back before 
he gets thus far. Although a lawyer by pro- 
fession and a member of the Bar, he is seldom 
seen in court ; his eloquence does not seem to 
have much weight with a jury, and the business 
community have discovered that his arguments 
are more rhetorical than sound. By way of 
counterpoise to this, he is the leading spirit 
of the Society of Fine-bots, Belles-Lettres and 
Horticulture of Villotte. From time to time, 
as some discovery is made in digging down the 
Mont de Fains — an old kettle, maybe, or a 
Gallo-Roman tumulus— he writes an essay and 
reads it before the society -j then he has fifty 
copies of his lucubration struck off — at the so- 
ciety’s expense, be it understood — and sends 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


13 


them round among* the houses where he visits. 
He has invented ever so many expedients,, none 
of -them dishonorable, however, whereby he 
may repay the obligations he incurs without 
putting his hand in his pocket. It is in this 
way that, in order to liquidate a portion of 
Uncle Mouginot’s account for board and lodg- 
ing, he has undertaken to instruct Aristide and 
me in the elements of French and Latin. Every 
morning we mount the stairs to his room on the 
second floor, facing on the street, where he 
makes us decline rosa, a rose, or inflicts on us 
a dictation selected from the most bombastic 
portion of his opuscule. Aristide is not a youth 
of brilliant parts, but he is industrious, while I, 
on the other hand, occupy myself with watch- 
ing the sparrows that come chirping about the 
window, or listen to the cries of the hucksters 
wheeling their loads of fruit and vegetables 
along the street, and thus I fail every now and 
then to catch a word of the dictation, which 
has the effect of destroying the harmony of M. 
Dieudonne’s style and procuring for me at the 
dinner-hour a sharp reprimand from my aunt 
Mouginot. 

It is M. Dieudonne who does all the talking 
at supper this evening. My uncle is a man of 
few words, my aunt is suffering from her neu- 
ralgia, so that were it not for Lawyer Jacobi our 
repast would be a very silent one. But he con- 
siders it a matter of duty to keep the conversa- 
tion going ; M. Dieudonne will talk on any and 
every subject, even if he is reduced to talking 
nonsense, rather than suffer one of those con- 


14 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


versational breaks which cause people to say : 
“ An angel is flying 1 over the house.” He chat- 
ters on and on, piling metaphor on trope and 
trope on metaphor, until he is called to order by 
the good-natured raillery of Grandma Pechoin. 
The old lady is very sensible, and takes no stock 
in his fiddle-faddle ; what she appreciates more 
than anything else is lucidity, and she makes no 
bones of so telling the sentimental lawyer. 

“ Ah, madame, you have clipped my wings !” 
he thereon exclaims in his mellifluous boyish 
voice. 

We have just finished the second course, a 
vinaigrette made from the boiled meat of the 
pot-au-feu ; Adele brings in the cheese in the 
midst of one of those silences that are so afflict- 
ive to M. Jacobi. Incontinently he starts off 
again : 

“ I attended vespers at Notre Dame this 
afternoon in order to hear the Magnificat , 
which is rendered there with an amplitude and 
a depth of feeling which never fails to raise 
me out of myself and sweep me away in a mys- 
tical whirlwind of soul — ” 

“ What’s that ? ” Grandma Pechoin mischiev- 
ously inquired; “I don’t comprehend you. 
Whirlwinds of dust I have seen many a time ; 
whirlwind of soul, never ! ” 

“ You ought to know by this time, mother,” 
Aunt Mouginot ironically remarks, “ that M. 
Jacobi doesn’t talk like the rest of us.” 

“ Oh, madame ! ” the offended lawyer rejoins, 
“ if that is the way you take me up just for a 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


15 


little figure of speech, I shall keep my mouth 
shut in future:’’ 

He stops, looks around him, and surprises on 
my face an irreverent smile. 

“By the way,” he goes on, giving me an 
ugly look, “ I looked for you at church, Jacques, 
hut Aristide seemed to have the bench all to 
himself. Where had you stowed yourself ? ” 

I experienced a disagreeable sensation as of a 
stream of c?ld water trickling down my back, 
and begin to blush. 

“Why were you not with Aristider, you bad 
boy ? ” my aunt severely demands. 

My virtuous cousin is watching me furtively 
out of the corner of his eye ; I feel that my 
misdemeanor is about to be brought home to 
me, and the thought makes me lose countenance. 
Already my uncle’s basilisk eyes are fastened on 
me — already my aunt’s sharp nose, breathing 
dire threats, is outstretched in my direction, 
when a thrice-fortunate incident occurs to cre- 
ate a diversion. The shop-door is thrown open 
with a bang, the little bell tinkles, and a voice 
hoarse by reason of frequent potations shouts : 
“ Letters ! ” At the same time, casting a 
glance through the sliding window, I make out 
the silhouette of the letter-carrier, who thrusts 
his hand down into his tin box and brings out a 
sealed envelope. 

“ A letter for you, Monsieur Mouginot. Ten 
sous due.” 

A big red hand is introduced through the 
openings delivers the letter, and waits expect- 
ant of the money, which my uncle counts out 


16 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


grumblingly ; then the carrier takes himself off 
and the door is closed again. Every eye is fixed 
on Victor Mouginot, who puts on his spectacles 
and deliberately examines the envelope. No 
one thinks of questioning me further, and I 
breathe once more. 

“ Hum ! ” says my uncle, “ that letter came 
from Paris. It is from my brother Scipio.” 

“ Oh, oh ! ” my aunt ill-naturedly insinuates, 
“if he writes to us you may be sureMt is to beg 
for something. ” 

My uncle breaks the seal and reads. His face 
is as expressionless as the face of a wooden 
image, and it is impossible to tell by the play 
of his features whether the contents of the 
letter are pleasing or the reverse. 

“ Arsehe ! ” he commands, with a significant 
glance toward the apprentice, “it is time for 
you to go back to the shop.” 

Arsene Camus obeys, and my uncle, still 
holding the open letter in his hand, cautiously 
closes the window of communication, and, ad- 
dressing himself to the company, continues in 
his customary unconcerned tone of voice, in 
which is perceptible, however, the slightest 
trace of irony : 

“ It is worth the ten sous. Listen ! ” 

And in the same even voice he begins to 
read : 

“ ‘ My dear Victor— It is a long, long time 
since I heard from the family and my old 
home, so I have determined to write and ask 
you for news. Although distance parts us, 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


17 


we must not let the grass of oblivion grow on 
the path of brotherly affection — ’ ” 

“ There’s a noble image ! ” exclaims M. Dieu- 
donne. “ He is a fine writer, the animal is.” 

“ It is very kind of you to say so, but don’t 
interrupt me, if you please, Jacobi,” growls 
Uncle Victor. “ I will continue : 

“ f — brotherly affection. Since we met last 
I have been constantly cudgeling my brain, 
and have elicited many new ideas. I came 
across one recently which would have insured 
a fortune to us all, but I had the impru&fence to 
make a confidant of an idiot who made it public 
before the right time, and spoiled all, so that 
the returns have not been what I expected 
they would be. I have, therefore, found it 
necessary to shift my gun to the other shoul- 
der. Adversity is a good teacher, sometimes. 
I am now on the track of a gigantic enterprise. 
I am digging away at it, and as soon as I shall 
have struck the vein it won’t be by thousands 
that we shall count our profits — it will be by 
millions. Needs it I should say once more that 
it is into your coffers, my dearest relatives, that 
this auriferous stream will pour its golden tide. 
For me, the glory will suffice of having con- 
ducted to a successful end a great and patri- 
otic enterprise ; what there is beyond shall be 
for my nephews. My laborious days and wake- 
ful nights are filled with thoughts of them, 
and particularly of Jacques, that interesting 
orphan whom destiny has intrusted to our care, 


18 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


and for whom I predict a brilliant future that 
shall not belie the promise of his precocious 
intelligence. Why can I not be with him, why 
can I not be with you all ? By supplementing 
your knowledge with my experience, I would 
make of him a man in the true meaning of 
the word. Unfortunately I have irons in the 
fire. Duty forbids me to leave my post, and 
barren, but heartfelt, prayers and wishes are 
all, alas ! that I have to contribute to my 
nephew’s education. Capitalists are chary in 
these troublous times, and collections are made 
with difficulty. Owing to this, my dear Victor, 
I am compelled once again to beg you to grant 
me credit for my proportionate share, now 
nearly due, of the cost of maintenance of that 
dear child for the current six months. It will 
only be a loan for a brief time. I am a little 
hard-up just now, but as soon as I shall have 
struck the vein the family shall be repaid every 
penny they have expended. All I can say to 
you at present is : I hear the rustling of the 
wings of Fortune above my head, and as soon 
as the jade is within reach I will not fail to 
grasp her. For that you have the word of 
your devoted and persevering brother, who 
sends a kiss to all of you, 

“ ‘ Scipio Mouginot.’ ” 

“What do you think of it?” my uncle 
Victor asks between his close-set teeth. 

“ Another of his schemes for bamboozling 
the unwary ! ” my aunt snorts with infinite 
contempt. “ What a humbug that man is ! ” 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


19 


“ I don’t care,” assertively declares Lawyer 
Jacobi, “ he wields a graceful pen all the 
same.” 

“Words, empty words!” is Grandma 
Pechoin’s verdict. “ That’s what I call prom- 
ising more butter than bread.” 

For my part, I am very much inclined to 
share M. Dieudonne’s admiration. The mill- 
ions evoked with such facility by Scipio Mougi- 
not’s golden pen dazzle me, and I am of opinion 
that they are unnecessarily severe on that 
uncle who intends to make me a rich man and 
has such a flattering idea of my capacity. 

“ What strikes me most evidently in this 
business,” my uncle gloomily observes, “is 
that we are to have Jacques on our hands en- 
tirely at our expense.” 

“ Yes,” my aunt continues, turning her eyes 
on me, “ fresh sacrifices are to be imposed on 
us for this boy’s sake. Let us hope that he 
will not prove ungrateful, and that he will do 
what in him lies to repay our kindness by obe- 
dience and good behavior — ” 

She delivers her little sermon with a counte- 
nance as sour as vinegar, and I am bitterly 
mortified. I cannot help thinking that alto- 
gether too much fuss is made over the sacri- 
fices that the family is subjected to on my 
account, and the thought of my mind is be- 
trayed on my countenance by a sulky grimace 
that proves highly displeasing to^ my touchy 
relative. 

“ Well, sir ! ” she cries, shaking me as if I 
were a plum tree, “why don’t you answer? ” 


20 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


She shakes me so violently that I lose my 
equilibrium and tumble off my stool, and do it 
so maladroitly, moreover, that I turn my back 
to my aunt in falling*, and the yawning* rent in 
the seat of my trousers is presented full to her 
horrified gaze in the lamplight. 

“ Holy Virgin ! what do my eyes behold ? ” 
exclaims Mme. Mouginot in a tone of indignant 
anger. “Where have you been, and what have 
you been doing, to ruin a pair of trousers that 
were new only the other day ? Answer, bri- 
sacque ! ” 

Grasping me by the shoulders, she stands me 
against the wall and holds me there, transfix- 
ing* me with a look that searches my very soul. 
I have not learned how to lie, and with eyes 
downcast I make a clean breast of my iniquity : 
nty temptation, the boat-trip, the absence from 
church, and all the rest of it. 

“ That’s what comes of disobedience,” my 
aunt replies. “ If you had been a good boy 
and gone with Aristide to vespers, you would 
not have torn your trousers. To-morrow you 
will stay in the house and have dry bread to 
eat. We are not rich enough to buy you new 
clothes every day ! ” 

“And since he is so fond of the water,” 
Uncle Victor sententiously adds, “ when he is 
fifteen I will see if I can get him a berth on 
board the training ship. That will do — let him 
take himself off to bed ! ” 

All rise from table, and as I am groping my 
way along the dark passage that conducts to 
the closet where Aristide and I sleep together 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


21 


I am conscious of a gently caressing hand upon 
my head, smoothing my curls. 

“Don’t cry, little one,” whispers Grandma 
Pechoin. “To-morrow, when the folks are all 
downstairs, do you come to my room ; I will 
give you some chocolate to make your dry 
bread taste better — and I’ll mend your trousers 
for you.” 


CHAPTER II. 

Kind Grandma Pechoin is as good as her 
word. While seated at table about one o’clock 
the following day, with a white earthenware plate 
and a tumbler of water in front of me — I am 
munching my butterless bread, listening sadly 
the while to the cheerful clatter of pots and 
pans that rises from the kitchen underneath — 
my door turns softly on its hinges, and I be- 
hold the lovely white-haired old lady, who, 
raising her finger to her lips, signs to me to 
follow her. With catlike steps we make our 
way to her bedroom, the windows of which, 
opening on the courtyard, have a southern 
aspect and command a pleasant view of the 
upper town of Villotte. 

The walls of the room are covered with a 
grayish paper with a flowered pattern, and the 
furniture is of the fashion that prevailed in the 
days of the First Empire : carved chairs with 
lyre-shaped backs, fauteuils ornamented with 
sphinxes’ heads, a white marble clock flanked 
by a pair of groups in Luneville faience repre- 


22 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


senting the Four Elements and the Four 
Seasons. Suspended on the walls are prints 
that were popular in those days — “Cupid and 
Psyche,” “ Diana and Endymion” — and on 
each side of the chimney-g-lass are miniatures 
of friends and relatives long' since dead and 
gone, ladies in high-necked, short- waisted 
gowns, officers in full uniform. The charm- 
ing, old-fashioned furnishings form a setting 
that harmonizes admirably with the old lady’s 
gracious aspect. 

She goes to her closet and brings back a cake 
of chocolate, some biscuits and a wine-glass, 
into which she pours a thimbleful of muscat, 
then bids me seat myself at a small inlaid-top 
table where I am at liberty to indemnify myself 
at my ease for my penitential dinner. 

“Don’t hurry, child,” says grandmother; 
“you have plenty of time. You can go away 
when the ladies come for their game of loto.” 

For many years it has been the custom for four 
or five old ladies, contemporaries of Grandma 
Pechoin, to come thrice a week and spend the 
afternoon playing loto in the apartment of 
m y guardian’s mother-in-law. Strange types 
they are of the past and gone society of Vil- 
lotte : widows of old army officers, unmarried 
ladies, neat as a pin in their attire and wrinkled 
and shriveled as autumn leaves. They address 
one another familiarly by their Christian names 

names that were in vogue many years ago, 
which seem to be in keeping with their anti- 
quated toilets— Minette, Lenette, Mimi, Bas- 
tienne. Not infrequently it happens that M. 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


23 


Dieudonne Jacobi, when he can spare the time 
from his society, joins the company of these 
delirious gamesters, and he looks after his 
winnings as sharply as any one. Sometimes, 
on rainy days, I am allowed to be present at 
their symposia, relgated to a corner where I 
am not in the way, with a picture-book upon 
my lap. The stake is one sou for each hand ; 
it is usually Lawyer Jacobi who draws the 
numbers from the bag and calls them out in 
his dulcet voice ; he never escapes being ac- 
cused of cheating by those whose names are 
not down on his sheet. It is seldom that the 
game breaks up without a squabble ; the mo- 
ment that one of the players proclaims she has 
a quine, the others cast suspicious glances at 
her and enter their clamorous protest, the dis- 
cussion comes perilously near developing into 
a quarrel, sharp words are bandied to and fro, 
then peace is gradually restored and a new 
game is started which, like its predecessor, 
ends tempestuously. In the intervals between 
games the news of the day is discussed, the 
petty scandals of the town are passed in re- 
view, and the conclusion is unanimously reached 
that Villotte is not what it used to be and the 
good old times have vanished, to return no 
more. 

But before proceeding further with this his- 
tory it will be in order for me to. make you 
better acquainted with Villotte and with the 
position that the dynasty of the Mouginots 
occupies therein. 

The little city of Villotte, situated on the 


24 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


confines of Lorraine and Champagne, lias 
never made much noise in the world, and 
what celebrity it has acquired is owing en- 
tirely to the delicious flavor of its mirabelles. 
The cultivation of this fruit is the only culture 
that has received serious attention there ; as to 
intellectual culture, its products are scarcely 
worth mentioning. Not that I would accuse 
the people of Villotte of lacking intelligence ; 
they are quick-witted, shrewd and ready at 
repartee, but the prevailing tone is of the 
earth, earthy, and there is more disposition 
to scoff and sneer than to be enthusiastic. 
Even as the soil is wanting in depth and the 
tap-rooted trees soon lose their vigor, so the 
surroundings afford but scant encouragement 
to the dawning genius of the artist or the poet; 
the sons of the soil are upright merchants, 
brave soldiers, but if you look for men of im- 
agination the3 T are not to be found. There is a 
curious circumstance to be noted in connection 
with this : if, by some freak of nature, the im- 
aginative faculty does manifest itself in the 
brain of some one of the indigenes, it suffers a 
sudden transformation, owing to atmospheric 
influence, and degenerates rapidly into mere 
eccentricity. This is the true explanation of 
the amphigorical style of the few Yillottians 
who have dabbled in literature. They have a 
language of their own, full, unconsciously to 
themselves, of inconsequential nonsense and 
absurdity, delicious specimens of which are to 
be found in various archaeological treatises of 
native production. 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


25 


Delving among ancient recollections, the 
Mouginot family, as well as I can remember, 
was a pretty fair exponent of the qualities, 
good and bad, that characterized the inhabit- 
ants of Villotte. It consisted of four broth- 
ers, to whose patronymics the public had 
tacked on the names of their wives in order to 
distinguish them from one another. There 
were Mouginot-Tupin, Mouginot-Pechoin, Mou- 
ginot-Brisetuile and Mouginot-Grodard. 

Mouginot-Tupin was a perfect incarnation of 
the pretentious and vain-glorious spirit that ac- 
tuates the people of the country. He had 
taken to wife Mile. Tupin, of the Anglecourts, 
a big, raw-boned, overbearing, solemn woman, 
with a face like a horse’s, nearly a yard long, 
who laid claim to descent from an old family 
of the magistracy. The Mouginot-Tupins lived 
in the upper town in an old house- which, in the 
eighteenth century, had been the property of a 
member of the Chambre des Comptes, and this 
former owner having neglected to remove his 
family portraits, they passed them off as those 
of their own ancestors. They had a stated day 
of the week for receiving — Sunday — toadied 
to the penniless members of the nobility, of 
whom the upper town was full, were invited to 
the entertainments at the Prefecture, and as- 
sumed airs of patronage toward the other mem- 
bers of the family, whom they never visited 
save on occasion of the great festivals. 

Victor Mouginot, or Mouginot-Pechoin, repre- 
sented the natives in their commercial and 
purely positive tendencies. He had married. 


26 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


rather late in life, the daughter of old Pechoin, 
the wealthy druggist, whose business he had 
continued. He led a domestic life, confining 
himself strictly to his shop, ‘where he busied 
himself with amassing a fortune, sou by sou, 
for Aristide, his only son. He never read any- 
thing except the Codex and the local newspa- 
per, and professed a sovereign coritempt for 
what he called “flights of imagination.” He 
considered that the only persons entitled to 
consideration at his hands were men of business, 
whose lives were duly labeled and ticketed like 
the bottles on his shelves. He ate his meals, 
took his constitutional tramp and went to bed 
at hours that never varied, and it was a fixed 
principle with him never to give way to his feel- 
ings. The only thing that had power to arouse 
him from big phlegmatic taciturnity was the 
aristocratic assumption of his brother, Mou- 
ginot-Tupin. The arrogance and condescending 
airs with which his sister-in-law treated the 
other members of the family made a hard mor- 
sel for him to swallow ; but, with an inconsist- 
ency in which he could see nothing unnatural, 
he affected the same contemptuous tone and 
assertion of superiority whenever his brother 
Scipio was in question. 

This last-named personage, while still a 
young man, had espoused a Mile. Brisetuile, 
who had died after two years of married life, 
leaving him a childless widower, whereon he 
turned his steps toward Paris, hoping to make 
a fortune there. Uncle Scipio had in his head 
the germ of that idiosyncratic Villottian im- 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


27 


agination of which I have spoken elsewhere ; 
but in his case the seed took a wrong course in 
sprouting and the plant grew crooked ; he was 
of- a flighty, irrepressible disposition, his teem- 
ing brain a storehouse of most magnificent 
schemes that invariably came to naught. 
Victor Mouginot, with his cruelly incisive 
common sense, summed him up as “a man 
who awakes every morning with a dream of 
making a million, and goes to bed every night 
a hundred francs out of pocket.” He would 
take up the most visionary and hopeless under- 
takings and throw all his heart and soul into 
them, and as soon as he tired of them would 
drop them with the same alacrity. No failure 
had power to quench his indefatigable ardor ; 
as soon as one of his hobbies had thrown him 
he got astride another and started off afresh 
with the same self-satisfied smile upon his 
face. He was crazy, people said, but if so it 
was after the fashion prevalent at Villotte ; his 
madness had in it an alloy of shrewdness and 
positivism that caused him always to alight on 
his feet and saved him. from serious injury after 
his frequent tumbles. Hence it was that, al- 
though there were times when he declaimed 
loudly and bitterly against his “hard luck,” he 
never seemed to suffer greatly from it in his 
own person. Grandma Pechoin did not like 
him, and always spoke of him as a dangerous, 
selfish schemer, declaring that he fixed matters 
in such a way that others should pay the pen- 
alty of his follies. I am judging all these 
things now from the point of view of a man 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


28 

who has learned the lesson of experience, hut 
in the days of my boyhood I thought quite dif- 
ferently. It was my belief then that the family 
was too hard on Uncle Scipio, and having re- 
ceived more kicks and cuffs than half-pence 
from the Mouginot - Tupins and Mouginot- 
Pechoins, I cherished in my heart of hearts a 
secret admiration for that Scipio Mouginot 
who was so unlike his brothers, and whose 
romantic genius had seduced my childish im- 
agination. 

Reverting to myself and my affairs, I am the 
sole representative of the Mouginot- Grodards. 
My mother, a country lass who first saw the 
light in a town not far from Villotte, died in 
giving me birth, and my father. Captain Mou- 
ginot, was infatuated with the life of a soldier. 
That is an inclination frequently met with 
among the young men of this eastern province, 
which has been a nursery for the army from 
time immemorial. It was a love match on my 
father’s part, and had not the approval of his 
family; he married a Mile. Grodard of Tre- 
mont, and not long after my mother’s death he 
also vanished from the scene, left dead on the 
field of Sidi-Ibrahim, leaving me for my entire 
inheritance his epaulettes and cross of the 
Legion. I thus became a charge upon my 
uncles, who were not any too well pleased with 
the obligation so summarily thrust on them ; 
but as the ties of family are held in great 
respect among the Mouginots, notwithstand- 
ing their bickerings and dissensions, they made 
the best of a bad bargain and accepted the 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


29 


captain’s legacy with outward cheerfulness. 
It was agreed that Uncle Victor should act as 
my guardian and have the supervision of my 
education, and that each of the three brothers 
should contribute equally toward my main- 
tenance. I was therefore quartered on the 
Mouginot-Pechoins, where I am now receiving 
my board and lodging, to say nothing of M. 
Dieudonne Jacobi’s instruction in French and 
Latin. The Mouginot-Tupins pay their sub- 
vention with scrupulous punctuality, but the 
case is not the same with Uncle Scipio, who, as 
often as the semi-annual period rolls around, 
finds some plausible excuse for deferring pay- 
ment, which gives rise to disagreeable scenes 
and affords Mme. Mouginot-Pechoin a text 
for reading me a humiliating sermon. The 
druggist’s wife does not love me ; she harbors 
a grudge against me — first, because I am a 
source of expense for which she receives no 
return, and next because I am brighter and 
handsomer than her own son Aristide. 

The fact is, there is not the remotest resem- 
blance between me and this fargon of virtue. 
I am as wide awake as he is dull and sleepy- 
headed, as dexterous and nimble as he is awk- 
ward. Again, I alone of all the family have 
brown hair and black eyes ; the Mouginots, 
every one of them, are light-haired, with sal- 
low complexions and small blue-gray eyes. I 
resemble my mother, so people tell me, who 
was a pretty woman, and by the kindly glances 
folks cast on me I can tell that my appear- 
ance is not repulsive to them. When my aunt 


30 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


takes us to walk, I overhear the flattering* 
comments of those we meet on my appearance 
and demeanor, which raises me to the seventh 
heaven of delight, hut is very irritating to 
Mme. Mouginot. She indemnifies herself by 
airing her shrewish humor at my expense ; 
she fretfully exclaims that I have nothing in 
common with the Mouginots, that I “take 
after ” the Grodards, who are all black as 
crows. That does not trouble my peace of 
mind . What does vex and annoy me, though, 
is that, under pretense of correcting my vanity, 
she dresses me in the most ridiculous and 
frightful old duds. While Aristide struts 
about the town in smart new garments made 
by the tailor in the Place de la Prefecture, I 
am condemned to wear Uncle Victor’s cast-offs. 
A seamstress by the day comes to the house 
and cuts out my jackets from my guardian’s 
old coats, and not only are these indispensable 
articles a horrible fit, but they are threadbare 
when I put them on for the first time. It is to 
the deplorable tenuit} 7 of the cloth, worn thin 
by many years of constant usage, that I at- 
tribute the mishap of the boat and the acci- 
dent to my trousers, and consequently, ever 
since the unmerited punishment inflicted by 
my aunt, I feel that I have a bone to pick 
with that vinegarish person and her hopeful 
son. 

Grandma Pechoin has mended the rent in 
my nether integument most scientifically, but 
though her neat stitches are invisible to the 
naked eye the traces of the injury are only too 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


31 


painfully apparent, and all summer long I shall 
be compelled to exhibit to an unfeeling world 
my trousers patched in the most conspicious 
place. Dry bread and confinement I can bear 
philosophically enough ; it even affords me a 
certain degree of satisfaction to be a martyr 
in that small way, but to be made a laughing- 
stock, there’s where the shoe pinches. Dress 
was always a weak point with me ; I have an 
invincible fondness for bright and pretty things. 
I would like to wear the glossiest of patent 
leather shoes, to have a trim brand-new jacket 
on my back, to sport an elegant velvet cap, 
like the sons of wealthy parents whom I en- 
counter in my walks. So far are these aspira- 
tions from being realized that I go about with 
a sensation of being caparisoned like an organ- 
grinder’s trick monkey, and my vanity suffers 
proportionately. When Sunday comes I slink 
shamefacedly into church and take possession 
of the remotest corner of the family bench, and 
when service is over I sneak along close to the 
walls, making myself as inconspicuous as pos- 
sible ; I have a mental image of the eyes of 
the congregation fixed on the amplest portion 
of my person, of the by-passers whispering to 
one another : “ He has a patch on the seat of 
his trousers ! ” 

This barefaced partiality in favor of my 
cousin is not limited to attire — it makes itself 
equally manifest at meal-times. The tidbits 
are for Aristide, anjThing is good enough for 
me. His mother invariably helps him to the 
breast of the chicken, and saves the drumstick 


32 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


for me. If at dessert there is [some specially 
luscious and tempting* fruit, it is sure to find its 
way to Aristide’s platfe, and I can content my- 
self as best I may with the overripe cherries 
and the gnarly pears. I am not a gourmand , 
but it stirs my bile to see him stuffing himself 
with all these good things right under my nose. 
I feel a sentiment of hatred toward him, like 
that which possessed Cain against his brother 
Abel, growing within my bosom. And then 
Abel was a handsome man, while Aristide has 
but little to recommend him in the way of 
beauty. A half-confessed desire to “get square” 
with him germinated in the deepest recesses of 
my heart, and gathers strength day by day ; I 
cudgel my wits to invent some trick to play 
upon my cousin that shall be a partial atone- 
ment for the favors with which he is unjustly 
loaded. I might give him a sound thrashing : 
that would be easy enough to do, but it is hot 
to be thought of ; he would bellow like a bull- 
calf, and condign punishment would infallibly be 
meted out to me. No, I shall have to try to 
devise some artful scheme that shall leave me 
unwhipped of justice and be felt by him alone. 
The trouble is. that Cousin Aristide’s hide is 
thicker than a pachyderm’s, and one knows not 
where to take him. By dint of reflection and 
careful watching, however, I succeed at last in 
> finding his vulnerable spot. 

My cousin is vain as a peacock ; he is only too 
well aware of the irregularity of his features, 
and for that very reason resents the slightest 
allusion to them ; any one wishing to arouse 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


33 


him to fury has only to twit him with his pro- 
boscidian nose. I bear in mind this foible of 
his, and resolve to watch for a fitting’ opportu- 
nity when I may turn it to account to the con- 
fusion of the household Benjamin. 

We are all seated around the table for the 
noonday meal. The soup having been removed, 
Adele brings in a dish of which I am particu- 
larly fond : small birds, larded and roasted in 
an iron pot, served on toast ; the steam from 
the toothsome mess fills the apartment, rising 
on the air with a delicious fragrance that 
brings the water to my mouth. Aunt Mou- 
ginot helps the company in succession, and de- 
posits on Aristide’s plate two birds and two 
slices of toast. I am. the last one served, and 
my portion consists of two little mites of birds, 
and no toast. Aristide is happy; he leers at 
me triumphantly through his white eyelashes, 
munching away ostentatiously at the golden- 
brown slices with which he is gorging himself 
at my expense. Outraged by the insult, I 
stare back at him in turn, then, taking my 
nose between the thumb and index finger, 
move my hand downward with a motion as of 
one caressing an appendage endlessly pro- 
longed. Aristide catches my meaning and 
bites his lip in vexation, but his pride will not 
allow him to say anything for the reason that . 
he is ashamed to attract attention to his de- 
formity. I triumph in his silence ; emboldened 
by success, I continue my irritating pantomime 
with variations ; I play the part of one who 
by reason of the enormity of his nasal organ 


34 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


cannot see the bottom of his plate, I pretend 
to put aside the imaginary proboscis with my 
hand. My cousin watches my movements with 
ill-suppressed wrath ; he turns green, he chokes 
with anger. My success inspires me to further 
efforts. Just at that moment Adele brings in 
the second course and places it on the table : 
potatoes boiled in their jackets ; there is a 
basket filled with those long pinkish Dutchmen 
that go by the name of bees de cane among us. 
As soon as I am served I give a slight cough in 
Aristide’s direction ; he raises his eyes in bliss- 
ful innocence just in time to see me applying 
to my nose the most preposterous of the mis • 
shapen tubers. He is unable longer to restrain 
himself, and his wrath explodes : 

“Mamma, mamma!” he cries, “ Jacques is 
making fun of me ! ” 

My aunt turns her head and eyes me sternly. 

“ What is it now ? ” she demands. 

“Did any one ever hear the like ! ” I pro- 
test with wide-eyed astonishment. “I was 
just skinning my potato — ” 

“Come, there, let us have peace!’’ growls 
Uncle Victor. 

Tranquillity is restored. A couple of min- 
utes later, however, I again take up a potato, 
and, tipping a wink at Aristide, apply it to the 
•end of my nose. 

“Mamma!” again yelps my cousin in a 
fury. 

Aunt Mouginot has been watching me with 
her sharp little eyes ..from, out the folds of her 
shawl, arranged ab»ut her head so as to give 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


35 


somewhat the effect of the hood of a doctor’s 
and sees through the meaning of my pan- 
tomime. Her heavy hand descends upon my 
face with a resounding smack. 

“ Take that, you little scamp ! ” she vocifer- 
ates. “IT1 teach you to persecute your 
cousin ! ” 

“ What has he been doing ? ” Grandma Pe- 
clioin wonderingly asks. 

I am well aware that I got no more than I 
deserved, but none the less I attempt to carry 
the matter off with a bold face. 

“ Who, I ? I have not been doing anything. 
I was eating my potato.” 

“ Story teller — I saw you ; you have been 
trying my patience for the last fifteen minutes. 
That boy is just as bad*as he can be ; he is en- 
tirely destitute of moral sense. He was ridi- 
culing my poor Aristide’s nose.” 

“That is very wrong, that is!” said kind 
old Grandma Pechoin, giving me a reproachful 
look. 

“ Yes, that is the mark of a bad disposition,” 
chimes in Lawyer Jacobi, delighted with the 
chance of interpolating a harangue ; “ it shows 
a want of Christian charity and a low propen- 
sity to caricature. And then, too, a boy who 
thinks for himself will not let his mind be influ- 
enced by mere external defects of face or fig- 
ure ; the main thing is to have, not a hand- 
some nose, but a beautiful soul. What matters 
it if the outer hull be rough provided the nut 
within be sweet and sound ? ” 

Every one is against me. Aristide, cheered 


36 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


and comforted in soul by the satisfaction de- 
rived from my disgrace and punishment, as well 
as by a double ration of dessert — my portion 
having been taken from me and added to his 
by Mme. Mouginot — has recovered his serenity 
and now has an opportunity to tantalize me in 
turn, which he does by displaying conspicuously 
before my eyes the juicy apricot tart that he 
devours with .provoking deliberateness. 

“ The moral of all this,” succinctly observes 
Victor Mouginot as he takes little sips from his 
glass of unmixed wine, “ is that cross dogs 
must be kept tied. Home education for boys 
going on eleven is too enervating ; they must 
be taught to rough it a little. As soon as the 
holidays are ended I will put that rascal yonder 
to school at Pestel’s. *The regimen there will 
also be beneficial to Aristide, who is getting to 
be too much of a milksop. ” 

“What ! ” Mme. Mouginot interrupts in 
alarm, “you don’t mean to say that you will 
turn our child over to strangers? ” 

“ Above all, I want to be allowed to eat my 
dinner in peace,” the druggist authoritatively 
rejoins. “ In two weeks they shall be entered 
at Pestel’s, both of them. I have said it ! ” 


CHAPTER III. 

The house that sheltered the Pestel school 
has long since disappeared to make room for 
other buildings, but every detail of its topogra- 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


37 


phy remains stamped upon my memory as 
vividly as if it were a thing* of yesterday. I 
mind me of the weather-worn walls fronting* on 
the street, where the master had his apart- 
ments and where were the refectory and dormi- 
tories ; then came the rectangular courtyard 
unevenly paved with cobble-stones, the minia- 
ture garden with its iron railing, and, in one 
corner, a solitary venerable pine tree, in the 
bark of which we used to make incisions and 
gather the exuding resinous tears for the sake 
of the aromatic odor they afforded tvhen 
burned. On the left a short flight of steps 
leads upward to a great room with white- 
washed walls and windows opening on the 
court. That is the principal classroom, and 
there I make my appearance one morning in 
October, accompanied by my cousin Aristide. 
The apartment is divided into two apparently 
equal portions by the stove and the raised plat- 
form on which M. Pestel is enthroned, a tall, 
spare man, with gray side-whiskers, receding 
forehead and a forbidden scar on the upper 
lip. He came from the Limousin originally, 
and is married to a little, bustling, scolding 
woman of Villotte, so lean that she is not much 
more than a bag of bones, who has charge of 
the primary class, into which Aristide, my 
junior by a year, has gravitated. I, thanks to 
my eleven years, am placed in the second divi- 
sion, where I find myself in the company of 
boys of fourteen and fifteen. The attendance 
is composed mainly of shopkeepers* sons and 
country lads, whom their parents send to Pes- 


38 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


tel’s because the expense is less there than at 
the college. The prospectus announces that 
pupils are prepared for classical studies, but 
the branches principally taught are French, 
history and mathematics. The first thing to 
occupy us in the morning is- dictation, then M. 
Pestel mounts his platform, and stationing him- 
self before the blackboard, chalk in hand, pro- 
ceeds to elucidate the theory of addition for our 
benefit. With the drowsy purring of the stove 
for an accompaniment he solemnly informs us 
in his loud, spluttering voice : “ I first add the 
column of units, I borrow one from that col- 
umn, equal to ten, and carry it to the column 
of tens—” I fail to see the w T hy and wherefore 
of all this borrowing and lending; when we 
come to the column of hundreds I cease to fol- 
low M. Pestel’ s explanations and my thoughts 
turn to other matters. 

At noon the bell rings for dinner, which my 
cousin and I, being partial boarders, eat with 
the rest in the refectory ; then until two o'clock 
we are given an opportunity to stretch our 
legs in the court, where we cut “ slides” in the 
hard-frozen snow. After that exercises in 
grammar and arithmetic consume the time 
until four o’clock, to be resumed once more 
from five to seven. Then we are dismissed for 
the day. By that time it is quite dark, the 
cold stings and pinches, and the northwind 
rattles the old-fashioned street-lamps at the 
corners. It is with a sensation almost pleas- 
urable that I come home to the pharmacy and 
take my place at table beside stern Mine. 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


39 


Mouginot. But the next morning*, at sharp 
half-past seven, I have to swallow down my 
bowl of hot milk in the kitchen and then 
struggle through snow or rain to Pestel’s and 
battle with wearisome questions in arithmetic. 

Under the dire stress of multiplication and 
division my head seems as if it would burst. 
Those complexities are as nothing, however, 
compared with problems. “ Two streams dis- 
charge simultaneously into a basin having a 
capacity of twenty quarts ; the first stream has 
a flow of one quart, the second of two quarts 
per hour. Question : What length of time will 
the two streams require to fill the basin ?” The 
problem seems to me unsolvable, and rack my 
brain as I may, I never succeed in filling that 
confounded basin. My neighbor is a carroty- 
headed, unkempt, sly-faced boy of fourteen, 
with eyes that look two ways for Sunday, 
which has procured for him the sobriquet of 
Guigne-a-Gouche. His real name is Lechau- 
del, and his father is a carpenter in the Rue du 
Coq. Lechaudel, alias Guigne-a-Gouche, does 
not seem to let the mystery of the basin in- 
terfere with his peace of mind. On the other 
hand, he is rich in talents that arouse in me 
the profoundest admiration. With the assist- 
ance of a bit of string which he holds in his two 
hands, having first knotted the ends together, 
he executes a series of most entertaining per- 
formances : the saw, the fish, the cat’s cradle, 
etc. Then, too, with a penknife and a sheet of 
stiff drawing-paper he cuts out fly-traps, with 
practicable doors and windows, which gives 


40 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


me a high opinion of his ability. With a view 
to initiation into the mysteries of the string 
and the manufacture of fly-traps, I treat him 
very obsequiously and surrender on his demand 
the little delicacies of my lunch-basket. Under 
his instruction I devote the hours set apart 
each week to the practice of composition to 
perfecting myself in these useful arts ; I ac- 
quire a tolerable degree of skill in the end, hut 
my exercises suffer, and when Saturday night 
comes I am at the foot of my class and have 
an abominable report to carry home. 

Oh, the dread terrors of those Saturday even- 
ings, when I have to go home to Uncle Mougi- 
not, bearing a report conceived invariably in 
these terms : “ Conduct, disorderly ; applica- 
tion, only fair ; arithmetic, very bad — ” ! Aris- 
tide’s notes, on the other hand, are excellent. 
He never stirs from his bench, his writing is 
like copper plate, at figures he is a youthful 
prodigy. We have no more than taken our 
seats at table than Uncle Victor calls for our 
reports ; when he comes to mine he reads it 
aloud, taking pains to enunciate distinctly every 
word, then folds the sheet and lays it on the 
table, observing phlegmatically : 

“Just as I have said all along — he will be a 
dunce ! ” 

“Oh, my poor child,” says Grandma Pechoin, • 
gently reproachful, “why won’t you apply your- 
self ? Follow Aristide’s example ; he is not so 
old as you ! ” 

“ That boy,” M. Dieudonne declares with an 
oracular air, “ that boy is the personification of 


MY TJNCLE SCIPIO. 


41 


levity. His mind has the wings of a but- 
terfly.’ ? 

“Pay no attention to him/’ my aunt snap- 
pishly rejoins, “ he does it just on purpose to 
annoy us. He has an ugly disposition. You 
get no dessert to-night, sir ! ’“’ 

These hebdomodal bulletins spoil my Sundays 
for me. Occasionally a better impulse seizes 
me, and I make heroic resolutions. I promise 
mentally that I will follow Grandma Pechoin’s 
advice and apply myself to my studies. But 
my ill-luck steps in and has something 1 to say. 
As fate w T ill have it, the problem “that day is 
even more thickly beset with difficulties than 
usual. While the dictation is in progress Gui- 
gne-a-Gouche distracts my attention with his 
grimaces and monkey tricks, and makes me drop 
words ; the consequence is that when Saturday 
night comes round again my report is more un- 
compromisingly bad than ever. Then I have 
not courage to go home and allow Aristide to 
return without me ; I roam aimlessly about the 
streets, where the biting wind chills me to the 
marrow. I stop mechanically and gaze with 
unseeing eyes at the contents of the shop- win- 
dows. It is not until I have passed to and fro 
before the shop a dozen times that I muster 
courage to cross the threshold. Through the 
plate-glass window of the shop-front I can catch 
glimpses of the brightly lighted dining-roofn, I 
can discern the shadowy forms of the inmates 
as they raise to their lips the contents of the 
smoking dishes. At last, freezing and almost 
dead with hunger, I give the door a timid push 


42 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


and enter. The little bell tinkles, and the sound 
finds an echo in my brain and in my stomach. 
A face appears at the vasistas — a voice ex- 
claims : “ Here he is ! ” while I slink around to 
my seat with a hang-dog* air. Aristide has 
made haste to tell all he knew, and the story of 
my discomfiture is public property. 

“ Where have you been, vagabond ? ” de- 
mands Aunt Mouginot. 

“ Where is your report ? ” asks in the same 
breath Victor Mouginot, fixing on me his stony 
eyes. 

With mingled shame and terror I hand him 
the envelope. Sarcasms and cuffs are showered 
on me ; even now a chill runs down my back as 
I recall the scene ; I think I can hear my uncle’s 
harsh and unsympathetic voice repeating : 

“ He will be a dunce ! ” 

Through my boyish cares and troubles, how- 
ever, the winter glided away, as the running 
stream finds its way among the piles of a 
bridge. The young shoots of the lindens are 
beginning to take on ruddy hues, there are 
cowslips in bloom in the beds of old PestePs 
garden, and from our benches in the school- 
room we can hear the blackbirds whistling 
among the budding lilacs. The approach of 
the month of May brings with it one- -of my 
most enjoyable pleasures : our Thursday out- 
ings among the woods. In the plain of Veel, 
on the border of the Petit-Jure, the Mouginot- 
Pechoins own a large rectangular piece of 
ground, bordered by coppices. The property 
was the scene of one of Scipio Mouginot’s 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


43 


earliest enterprises. In those remote days 
Uncle Victor, not having 1 as yet lost faith in 
Scipio’s genius, had allowed himself to he per- 
suaded by the latter into undertaking* the cult- 
ure of silk-worms and establishing* a hatchery 
at Villotte. This bit of land was bought on 
joint account and planted with white mulberry 
trees. 

At the present day the mulberry trees still 
throw up an occasional spindling shoot in the 
clayey soil of the plain and lead a precarious 
existence, but the hatchery has long since gone 
to ruin amid the jeers and laughter of the good 
people of Villotte. Vegetation is backward in 
this eastern portion of French territory, and 
the worms would insist on leaving their co- 
coons before the trees were ready to furnish 
them with subsistence, so that they died of 
starvation and the venture proved a lament- 
able failure. The druggist took possession of 
the land and transformed it into an orchard ; 
he built a hut on the premises from the ma- 
terial of the ruined hatchery, and also engin- 
eered a sort of leafy bower, or summer-house, 
where we come out to take dinner and spend 
the afternoon in summer-time. 

Promptly at one o’clock on these occasions 
the saddle is clapped on Cadet, an extremely 
sagacious little donkey, to whom is accorded 
the honor of bearing Mme. Mouginot and her 
fortunes. Adele fastens the basket containing 
the eatables to the crupper, my aunt seats her- 
self in state on the roomy saddle, and off we 
go, M. Dieudonne leading Cadet by the bridle, 


44 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


Aristide and I bringing up the rear. Travers- 
ing the Faubourg of Veel, where the weavers’ 
looms maintain a clatter sufficient to wake the 
dead, we enter the Chalaide, a hollow road be- 
tween two high wooded banks where the sun 
strikes vertically upon the green umbrella that 
Aunt Mouginot holds undeviatingly erect above 
her head. Climbing slowly upward, we reach 
the summit of the hill, the broad level where, 
amid the tender green of the vines and the 
grayish foliage of pollard willows, a few red- 
roofed peasants’ cottages are nestled. Before 
us lies the plain with its uncultivated, undulat- 
ing stretches covered with a promising crop of 
bowlders, with its fields of rippling wheat, and 
beyond, on the horizon, its encircling wall of 
forest; here is the “ property” with its newly 
planted plum trees and its thin row of mul- 
berry trees that Aunt Mouginot can never look 
at without a sigh, and her little hut of rough 
stone, from the chimney of which a thread of 
blue smoke is already rising on the air. 

Grandma Pechoin, more active than her 
daughter, has gone on ahead with old Adele, 
and they have lighted a fire of brush which, 
when it has settled down into a bed of live 
coals, will serve to roast a la ficelle the leg of 
mutton from which we are to make our dinner. 
Cadet is relieved of his saddle and housed under 
the shed ; then for a time we stroll up and down 
the central alley, along each side of which is a 
border of strawberry plants. M. Dieudonne, 
who goes off into ecstacies of admiration when- 
ever he beholds a blade of grass and sees an in- 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


45 


tention in everything, commences a discourse in 
which he commends the foresight of nature in 
making moles blind in order that they shall not 
leave their underground retreats. Grandma 
Pechoin cuts him short with scant ceremony in 
order to get up a game of loto. Aristide and I 
are permitted to take a hand, hut we are in- 
formed that if we win it is not to count, and 
that we are only admitted to make up the game. 
That fashion of interesting us in the sport seems 
to me too utterly absurd, so I behave as badly 
as I possibly can, and succeed in getting myself 
eliminated from the game. Then I slip away 
and make for the wood, in the depths of which 
I bury myself with supreme content. 

This woodland vagabondizing affords me 
more real pleasure 4 than anything else in my 
weekly holidays. The silence of the forest has 
no terrors for me, and I never find the time 
hang heavy on my hands. I people the thick- 
ets with unsubstantial beings, and hold imagin- 
ary conversations with them ; I gather flowers, 
I investigate the properties of each new plant I 
meet, I spend hours watching the busy ants 
bustling about the entrance to their subterra- 
nean dwelling. It is a pleasure to me to lose 
myself in the thickest of the wood and unex- 
pectedly come out upon the lonely and mysteri- 
ous plain. 

Far in the distance, beyond the billowing 
wheatfields, I discern a belt of vaporous forest, 
and I make believe to myself that I am ap- 
proaching unknown countries, lands of faery, 
to which I give fantastic names. I rack my 


46 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


brain to invent perilous adventures of which I 
am the hero, and sometimes my figments of 
the imagination assume such an air of realism 
that I feel a delicious shudder stealing over me, 
while I keep my eyes fixed on the plain, over 
which the larks, lost in the depths of air, are 
warbling unseen, like an enchanted orchestra. 
Sometimes I lure Aristide on to accompany me 
by assuring him that I know where there is a 
mulberry tree whose fruit is fit to eat, and I 
try to make him a sharer in my romantic im- 
aginings. 

“ Look there/ ’ I say to him, “ beyond that 
great wood that you see yonder is a city of 
giants ; and you see that strip of blue away in 
the distance ? That is the sea — ” 

But Aristide is as prosaic and matter-of-fact 
as a little wizened old man ; it is no pleasure to 
invent fairy-tales for his benefit. He gives a 
shrug of the shoulders, and with a sneering 
expression that reminds me of his mother ex- 
claims : 

“Oh, come now, what’s that you’re giving 
me? Those are the woods of Combles, and 
that strip of blue down yonder is the Argonne. 
Let’s be getting back ; I’m hungry as a 
bear.” 

We shape our course for the “propertj^,” 
and arrive in safety. The dinner is served in 
the summer-house, where the leg of mutton, 
done to a turn, diffuses a most delicious odor. 
Uncle Victor rolls back his sleeves and carves 
it in his methodical manner, generously appor- 
tioning to me the outside cut, while the ten- 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


47 


derest and juiciest slice is reserved for “ poor 
Aristide.” We are still lingering over our des- 
sert when the twilight shadows begin to add 
their mysterious charm to the surrounding 
woods and the north-star appears, a glittering 
point, in the heavens where the blue is yielding 
to tints of green. We commence our prepara- 
tions for the return. Mme. Mouginot, assisted 
by the ever- assiduous Jacobi, climbs clumsily 
to her seat of honor on Cadet’s back, and as 
Aristide complains that his shoes hurt him, he 
is accorded the privilege of sprawling beside 
his mother on the saddle. As for the rest of 
us, we make our way down the hill on foot; 
Lawyer Dieudonne lends a supporting arm to 
Grandma Pechoin, Uncle Victor leads the 
donkey by the bridle, and I, bringing up the 
rear of the procession in solitary state, hang 
back to watch the moon, just beginning to 
peep above the trees that border the roadside. 
Buzzing beetles wing their way past me with a 
hurried air of businesslike messengers from 
the world of spirits, moths brush my cheek 
with their downy wings ; from among the 
undergrowth of vines and brambles that lines 
the bank, the silvery bells of the crickets keep 
up a faint, incessant tinkling, and I again 
allow myself to be borne away on the wings of 
imagination, but just as I have come to the 
most thrilling part of my adventure I am bru- 
tally summoned back to earth again. 

“ Moon-gazing, hey ? ” growls Uncle Victor. 
“ Come along, you dawdler, or I’ll see if I can’t 
find a way to put a little life into you ! ” 


48 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


By the time the household gets home it is 
generally in a pretty cross and ill-natured 
frame of mind : aunt has taken cold and sees 
an attack of neuralgia impending for the mor- 
row; Aristide, soothed by the donkey's easy 
gait, has let himself drop off into slumber and 
squalls on being awakened suddenly ; M. Dieu- 
donne is afflicted by his corns. Alone, among 
them all I have no fault to find with my 
day’s outing. I throw myself on m3 7 little bed 
and sink peacefully off into a refreshing sleep, 
with the music of the larks still ringing in my 
ears, the misty blue of my distant fairyland 
still present before my eyes. But the next 
morning the door of old Pestel’s school will 
yawn for me again. I must go back and com- 
mence anew my everlasting treadmill round of 
grammar, arithmetic and history. The inter- 
vening schooldays that lie between one, Thurs- 
day and its successor seem terribly long and 
barren to me. 

M. Pestel is explaining the theory of decimal 
fractions to us one morning, mounted on his 
platform, his long, snuff-colored frock-coat flap- 
ping about his calves, his bald head and promi- 
nent beak giving the general effect of a bird of 
prey as they are outlined against the black- 
board. The boys on the front rows of benches 
crane their necks and follow the master’s dem- 
onstrations on the board with a show of atten- 
tion ; but Lechaudel and I, from our places on 
the fourth bench where we are sheltered behind 
a triple row of backs, pay but scant' heed to 
what is going on before us. Guigne-a-Gouche, 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


49 


whose ingenuity is never at fault to discover 
means whereby to alleviate the tedium of 
school, has cut in the table a hole which opens 
into the drawer beneath where each boy keeps 
his books and slate, and through this hole he 
drops pennies into the interior of the drawer, 
which he then opens to see whether they have 
come down head or tail. 

“ Have you any money about you ? ” he asks 
me in a whisper. 

I have six sous, which I take from my pocket 
and exhibit to him ; his squinting eyes glitter 
at sight of the coin of the realm. 

“ Do you want to play ? ” he continues ; “ it's 
great fun. I drop one of your sous into the 
drawer ; if it comes up tails, you win and I give 
you one of mine ; if it is heads, then I take your 
sou/’ 

I agreed to the proposal and give him one of 
my coppers, a handsome, bright-yellow sou 
bearing the effigy of Louis XVI. The coin dis- 
appears in the hole and the drawer is opened. 

“ It’s a head ! ” whispers Gfuigne-a-Gouche’; 
“I’ve won. Come, do you want your re- 
venge ? ” 

As innocent as a ^new-born babe, I hazard 
another sou and anxiously await the opening of 
the drawer. 

“ Heads again ! ” says my companion with a 
hypocritical sigh. “You are having bad 
luck.” 

But casting a hurried glance of investigation 
at the internal arrangement of the drawer, I 
see that my tricky friend has placed a slip of 


50 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO 


cardboard so that the coins shall slide down it 
and come up head or tail as he may will. I fire 
up and angrily protest : 

“ You cheated ! give me back my money.’ ’ 

And at the same time I stretch forth my hand 
to seize the pennies in the drawer, which Le- 
chaudel attempts to close with a vicious shove. 
A brief and voiceless struggle ensues ; I direct 
a shower of kicks at Guigne-a-Gouche’s shins, 
and he responds with a blow. Every eye is 
turned on us, but our passions are aroused to 
such a pitch that we keep on pummeling each 
other until Pestel interferes and parts us with 
a couple of cuffs that are audible throughout 
the room. 

“You ill-conditioned cubs!” he roars, “do 
you know no better than to fight like a pair of 
coal-heavers ? If you don’t. I’ll teach you ! ” 

His attention is attracted to the open drawer, 
where the sous lie scattered in confusion ; he 
grasps the situation and his face becomes livid. 

*“ So, then, this is how you pass your time 
while I am talking myself hoarse to try to teach 
you something ! ” he goes on. “You convert 
my school into a gambling-house ! It is well ; 
you will spend Thursday afternoon in the school- 
room in close confinement.’’ 

Whereupon he confiscates our pennies and 
leaves us, red as a couple of peonies, to reflect 
on our misadventure. Community of misfortune 
makes us kind once more, and Lechaudel, while 
repairing damages, murmurs : 

“ Do you mean to come on Thursday ? I 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


51 


know very well that I won’t. I mean to take 
an airing* that day.” 

I made no reply, but the thought that there 
is a possibility of escape from Pestel’s sentence 
gradually takes root in my mind and grows 
there. It so happens that my aunt has ar- 
ranged a picnic for that very Thursday ; sev- 
eral friends of our acquaintance are to come 
with their children and enjoy an open-air dinner 
with us at the “ property,” and I know that 
there is to be a monster game of nine-holes. To 
be cut off from delights like these I feel would 
he a calamity beyond my powers of endurance, 
and as Lechaudel, my accomplice, does not 
intend to submit to confinement, I don’t see 
why I should carry my heroism so far as to 
take my punishment alone. A consideration of 
two sous duly paid to Aristide secures his 
silence, and when Thursday comes, untorment- 
ed by the faintest feeling of remorse, I fall into 
line behind little Cadet the donkey, who bears 
on his back Mme. Mouginot, flanked on each 
side by a huge hamper of provisions. 

Oh, the exquisite delights of that Thursday 
thus ravished from the tyranny of old Pestel ! 
The plain is flooded with brightest sunlight, 
and over the fields, redolent with the sweet 
breath of clover and sainfoin, brilliant-hued 
butterflies flutter in innumerable swarms. The 
woods are odorous, the wild cherry trees are 
red with fruit ; several times do I score a hun- 
dred at nine-holes, and I win ten sous ; the din- 
ner is good and there is plenty of it, everybody 
is agreeable and go^d-humored, and the return 


52 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


to Villotte is not made until it is too dark to 
see. But as the fete draws to an end a leaden 
sensation of dread and uneasiness takes posses- 
sion of me and weighs me down, the burden of 
which grows heavier with every step I take to- 
ward home, and when I cross the threshold of 
the pharmacy I find that the load of remorse 
which I threw off so nonchalantly in the morn- 
ing has at night resumed its old position on my 
shoulders. With a sad heart I take myself off 
to bed. I sleep badly, and wake up with a start 
in the darkness of the night to think with terror 
of what will happen on the morrow when I show 
myself at school. I could pray for an eternity 
of night. In the shadowy silence of our bed- 
room I listen for the tolling of the deep-mouthed 
bell that tells the hours. — Three o’clock ! — Five 
hours more, and I shall know my fate. 

I try to go to sleep so that I may think of it 
no more, but soon as I close my eyes I have a 
nightmare ; my dream shows me old Pestel 
brandishing his ferule and darting angry 
glances toward my empty place out of his 
gray eyes with their bushy, bristling brows. 
I awake and spring up in bed. Already there 
are parallel bars of faint white light where the 
closed blinds are, and I hear the Angelus peal- 
ing from the belfries of the churches far and 
near. One more hour of respite — I bury my 
head beneath the bed-coverings and lie without 
motion until Aristide comes to summon me to 
breakfast. I shiver while I dress myself, al- 
though the weather is very warm. I force my- 
self to swallow a cup of milk, at which my 


MY CJNCLE SCIPIO. 


53 


stomach revolts ; I sling my satchel across my 
hack, and we are off. 

“ What are you going to say to old Pestel ? ” 
Aristide ill-naturedly asks. 

My only answer is a shrug of the shoulders, 
but involuntarily my step becomes slower and 
heavier and I slink along the sidewalk much 
like a whipped cur sneaking homeward to his 
kennel with his tail between his legs. 

Now we are before the entrance to the school. 
My heart is heavy as lead, and I am conscious 
of a sensation of icy cold between my shoulders. 
We cross the deserted court ; we are late and 
the boys are all in their places. Aristide throws 
open the door and my ears are saluted by a con- 
fused sound of muffled voices, then every head 
is turned and every eye bent on me. Before I 
have advanced three steps Pestel, clothed in all 
his terrors, presents himself before me, close- 
buttoned in his long, tight-fitting coat, a fero- 
cious scowl on his scarred lip. 

“ Ah, here you are at last, you young sin- 
ner ! ” he cries. “ Why did you not come and 
submit yourself to arrest yesterday, as I bade 
you ? ” 

I cast down my e3 r es and falteringly reply : 

“ I — I forgot it.” 

“ I see your memory is treacherous ; so much 
the worse for you. I will not retain a pupil 
who is incorrigible, one who is constantly set- 
ting an example of evil to his companions. Go 
back to where you came from, infected member 
of the flock ; you are expelled from school, and 


54 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


your family shall be notified this very morn- 
ing-.” 

Pestel throws wide the door, and driving me 
before him, stands for a moment longer on the 
threshold, shaking his fist and shouting in a 
voice of thunder : 

“Off with you! begone! Leave the prem- 
ises — I expel you ! ” 


CHAPTER IV. 

Aristide has been intrusted by Pestel with a 
note to M. Mouginot-Pechoin informing my 
guardian of my disgrace. When, after wan- 
dering all the morning about the city in a 
pitiable frame of mind, I at last return to my 
abode, my uncle wrathfully grasps me by the 
collar of my jacket, and without allowing a 
word to escape his pale, pinched lips shuts me 
in a disused workroom where I am to take my 
meals and whence I am not to stir until it 
comes time to go to bed. This enforced seclu- 
sion -has lasted three weeks when, as I am 
whiling away the time one morning by opening 
and shutting the faucet of a pipe intended to 
supply water to a great copper kettle, the 
door of my prison flies back ; but being deeply 
absorbed in my occupation, and deafened, more- 
over, by the reverberating roar and splash of 
the water in ,the hollow receptacle, I hear noth- 
ing. A sound thump on the back arouses me 
from my meditations, and turning, I behold be- 
fore me the frigid face of my uncle Victor. 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


55 


ff You good-for-nothing ! ” he growls. Then 
laying his hands on my shoulders and shoving 
me toward the door : “ Follow me ! ” he lacon- 
ically orders. 

What can he be going to do with me? We 
cross the courtyard,, carpeted with aristolo- 
chias, we ascend the stairs, and to my intense 
stupefaction my uncle stops at the entrance 
to the drawing-room, an apartment that is 
never used except on rare and solemn occa- 
sions, three or four times a year ; he turns the 
knob, and, taking me by the arm, introduces 
me, dumb with amazement, to the presence of 
five persons seated primly in a circle on the 
sofa and fauteuils of reseda-colored velvet. 
The blinds are thrown back as far as they will 
go, but notwithstanding the warmth of the 
sunshine out of doors, the long disused room, 
with its round marble-topped table, its waxed 
floor smooth and slippery as a mirror, its clock 
under glass and chandeliers done up in gauze, 
is damp and cold as a cellar and has a frosty, 
barnlike aspect. I gradually recover my fac- 
ulties and am enabled to recognize the faces of 
the company. 

Seated on the sofa, where she is least exposed 
to be contaminated by the contact of the 
others, is Mme. Nathalie Mouginot-Tupin, un- 
compromisingly stiff and erect, laced within an 
inch of her life and muffled in a red cashmere 
shawl with a figure of white palm-lea ves ; a 
green velvet bonnet surmounted by an ostrich 
feather of corresponding shade serves partially 
to conceal her long equine face, bordered by 


56 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


corkscrew curls of an undecided yellowish hue 
and wearing 1 a disdainfully compassionate smile. 
A few feet from her, perched on the edge of his 
fauteuil in an attitude expressive of great defer- 
ence, is her husband, my uncle Mouginot- 
Tupin, a little man with a papier-mache com- 
plexion and an insignificant presence ; his most 
remarkable attributes are his inordinately long 
nose, his trick of blinking his muddy eyes and 
the color of his scanty, yellow hair, plastered 
flat upon his cranium. Every now and then he 
steals a timid look toward his wife, then his 
trembling fingers go down into his coat pocket 
whence he extracts a small, round box, and the 
little man, stealthily opening the tortoise-shell 
receptacle, surreptitiously slips into his mouth 
a jujube lozenge that he may have something 
to comfort him and occupy his mind. 

With her head enshrouded in her thickly 
wadded hood, and ensconced, moreover, in a 
fauteuil with side-pieces as a protection against 
neuralgia, my aunt Mouginot-Pechoin occupies 
a seat not far from her brother-in-law, at whose 
majestic better-half she furtively casts vinegar- 
isli looks. Behind the fauteuil with side-pieces 
stands M. Dieudonne Jacobi, erect and vigilant 
like a body-guard. There is still another per- 
son : a square-built, black-bearded, sunburnt 
man, with hair cut en brosse, who has thrown 
himself unceremoniously into an easy-chair and 
is tapping his crossed legs with the end of his 
stick ; his attire is scrupulously neat, but one 
has only to look at its redundant material and 
antiquated cut to see that the wearer is a 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


5 ? 


countryman. He has bright black eyes, his 
gestures are brusk and impulsive, hi.s face is 
a frank and honest one. I have seen him but 
twice in my life, and that was long ago, but I 
recognize in him M. Marcel Delorme, a first 
cousin of my mother, now holding the position 
of superintendent in the paper factory at 
Jeand’heurs. 

Uncle Victor conducts me to the middle of 
the room, where I am exposed to a converging 
fire from the eyes of these five individuals; 
then he goes and posts himself with his back 
to the fireplace, pulls his cuffs down over his 
big knobby fists, and calling the attention of 
the assemblage to me, thus begins : 

“The subject of discussion is before you ! 
It was to speak to you of this boy that I have 
put you to the trouble of coming here to-day. 
You are all relatives of his except Lawyer 
Jacobi, and him I have invited to be present in 
the capacity of counsel and friend of the family. 
This scapegrace has recently been expelled from 
his school ; in addition to that I believe there 
is not a single fault under the sun that he has 
not ; my patience is at an end, and before re- 
sorting to extreme measures I wish to take 
your opinion. You are the oldest,” he adds, 
turning to M. Mouginot-Tupin, “it is for you 
to speak first.” 

At this interpellation the little man shifts 
nervously to and fro upon his chair, takes out 
his box and slips a lozenge into his mouth, and 
addressing me in a voice of pained reproach : 

“How is this, Jacques,” says he, “your 


58 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


master won’t keep you in his school ? At your 
age ! It is disgraceful — ” 

“ Palamede ! ” Mme. Mouginot-Tupin magis- 
terially interrupts, “there is no use in preach- 
ing to your Nephew. That is a duty that 
rightfully belongs to his guardian, who has 
had entire charge of his education. We have 
not been consulted, and, thank the Lord ! can’t 
be held responsible for the turn matters have 
taken.” 

“ Do you mean by that to say we have not 
done our duty by the boy ? ” my aunt Mougi- 
not-Pechoin acidulously interjects. 

“ I keep my opinions for myself, madame ! 
Every one must stand or fall on his own 
merits.” 

“I do not -flinch from m3 T responsibility,” 
Uncle Victor sulkily rejoins, “but it is to 
decide on what is to be done in the future, 
not to criticise what I have done in the past, 
that I have brought you together to-day. 
Pestel has expelled from his school this worth- 
less vagabond, who misbehaves and will not 
apply himself to his studies. This being the 
case, I ask you if it is not better, for the child’s 
own sake, that he should be put to learn a 
trade ? ” 

“ Indeed ! That will reflect great honor on 
the family,” Mme. Mouginot-Tupin ironically 
observes. “ A Mouginot in mercantile business, 
that might possibly be endured ; but a common 
laborer— what a come-down ! ” 

“ A merchant, madame, who earns his living 
by honest toil,” retorts my aunt Victor, get- 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


59 


ting* on her high horse, “ is every bit as good 
as a rentier who spends all his income, and 
more, too, in order to associate with his betters. 
Besides, I am not aware that the Tupins sprang 
from the brain of Jupiter.’ ’ 

“ My father was a magistrate, madame ! ” 

“ Really ?” replies the druggist’s wife with 
a provoking affectation of surprise ; “1 had 
always supposed he was a clerk. Perhaps 
that is what people call the ‘ sitting magis- 
tracy ’ ? ” 

“ This is unendurable ! ” exclaims the de- 
scendant of the Tupins, pulling her red cash- 
mere more closely about her shoulders. “ You 
would not dare insult me in this way outside 
your own house — ” 

“ Come, come, ladies,” Cousin Delorme laugh- 
ingly interrupts, “ every honest means of gain- 
ing a livelihood is respectable, and men are to 
be judged only by their personal worth. My 
advice has not been asked so far, but I make 
bold to offer it in the hope that it will put an 
end to this discussion. It is too bad that the 
youngster doesn’t take kindly to Latin, but 
we must not consider him a hopeless case on 
that account. What do you say to letting me 
have him ? I will put him to school until he is 
fourteen,’ and then he can enter the factory 
as an apprentice.” 

“You would make a peasant of him,” sneers 
Mine. Mouginot-Tupin. “ That caps the cli- 
max.” 

While the discussion is going on I remain 
standing in the center of the group, a mat of 


60 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


plaited straw beneath my feet. I find it bit- 
terly mortifying* to be dissected thus in pres- 
ence of all these people, and my face is scarlet. 
In the midst of my confusion, however, I keep 
a watchful eye upon my judges, and criticise 
them with the merciless and irreverent acumen 
of youth. For the greater part of those who 
constitute the family council I entertain not the 
slightest respect. Uncle Mouginot-Tupin, ab- 
sorbed in the mastication of his lozenge, ap- 
pears to me no better than an idiot. His great 
hackney of a wife, with her red shawl fastened 
beneath the chin by an immense cameo brooch, 
makes me feel like laughing outright, and I 
could almost hug my aunt Victor for snubbing 
her as she did. The only one of them all who 
finds favor in my eyes is Cousin Delorme ; 
nevertheless, I am not over well-pleased with 
his offer to take me with him to Jeand’heurs. 
In my little childish noddle, filled with glitter- 
ing visions and dreams of glory, I believe that 
destiny has better things in store for me. The 
prospect of entering the paper factory as an 
apprentice seems to me almost like a dis- 
grace, and 1 tremble at the thought that my 
uncle Victor may accept the superintendent’s 
proposition. 

Fortunately, I am destined to be more 
frightened than hurt ; my guardian has really 
no great desire to part with me. He has 
made his calculations and is aware that should 
he turn me over to an outsider he will not 
only lose the contribution of the Mouginot- 
Tupins, but will also have to pay to M. De- 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


61 


iorme his one-third share in the expense of 
my maintenance and education. From his old 
position in front of the fireplace he replies to 
the other’s proposition with a gesture of dis- 
sent : 

“No, Monsieur Delorme, the child was con- 
fided to my care, and I mean to keep him. If 
I have summoned you all to meet here to-day, 
it is that you may invest me with unlimited 
authority, for this young rascal must learn 
that he has got to walk straight and toe the 
mark like a soldier — ” 

“ I have nothing to say against that,” M. De- 
lorme replies; “I am myself somewhat of a 
stickler for discipline. But you have not told 
us what was the offense that led to his expul- 
sion.” 

“He lied to us,” explains Aunt Victor. 
“ He was sentenced to be ‘kept in,’ and instead 
of submitting to his punishment he had the im- 
pudence to go with us to the woods and enjoy 
himself.” 

“That is not a hanging offense,” the super- 
intendent indulgently murmurs. 

“ In my time,” slowly enunciates Uncle 
Mouginot-Tupin, twisting his face out of all 
human shape in his effort to keep the inevitable 
lozenge from slipping down his throat, “in my 
time boys were made to obey, and when they 
were punished they had to submit.” 

“And then, too,” adds M. Dieudonne Jacobi 
in his very silkiest voice, “ chastisement is not 
half so hard to bear if one will but kiss the 
rod.” 


62 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


“That’s all very fine ! ” rejoins Cousin De- 
lorme, shrugging his shoulders, a little con- 
temptuously I thought ; "" but I wish I could see 
what you were like, you old fellows, when you 
were of the age of this little man. I have an 
idea that you were not saints and that, like 
myself, your conscience reproaches you with 
"playing hookey ’ more than once.” 

"" Those are nice things to say in the hearing 
of a child ! ” Aunt Victor objects, highly scan- 
dalized. 

"" Sir,” Mouginot-Tupin sputters, indignantly, 
“ I was never kept in, I would have you to 
know. I was always a good boy and obeyed 
my masters.” 

"" So much the worse for you,” is M. De- 
lorme’s rude reply. "" Your model boys always 
turn out to be milksops when they reach man- 
hood . ” 

“ Milksops ! ” Mme. Mouginot-Tupin is per- 
fectly well satisfied in her own mind that the 
appellation suits her husband to a T, but she 
does not like to hear it from another’s lips. 
She rises, drapes herself once again in her 
cashmere, and darting an imperious look at 
Mouginot-Tupin : 

“Come, Palamede, let’s be going ! ” she ex- 
claims. ""It is a little too much, to come here 
to be insulted by a nobody ! ” 

The conversation threatens to take an acri- 
monious turn again ; noses and chins are pro- 
truded in defiant attitudes and eyes seem to 
shoot poisoned darts. All at once, just as the 
storm is on the point of bursting, there is a 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


63 


knock at the door, old Adele’s face is visible for 
a moment, and she announces : 

“ Mr. Scipio Mouginot ! ” 

Various impressions, surprise, curiosity, ap- 
prehensions and contempt flit rapidly across the 
faces of the assemblage. 

“ Yes, dear friends, it is I ! ” rings a voice 
like a clarion. 

And the door opens wide to give passage to a 
man who will never see forty-five again, but 
who looks younger. He is attired in an elegant 
light-gray overcoat that is thrown open to dis- 
close a dark frock buttoned across the chest, 
beneath which are nankeen trousers and gaiters 
of the same material. He bears erect his 
shapely, well-modeled head and clean-cut face 
indicative of intelligence : smiling, freshly-sha- 
ven lips, light-brown, curling side-whiskers, 
locks that are just beginning to be silvered here 
and there with gray. His blue eyes have an 
indescribable expression, at once bold, entreat- 
ing and subtly seductive, that seems to magnet- 
ize one. In one hand he carries a tall pearl- 
gray hat of fashionable shape, in the other a 
morocco leather portfolio stuffed almost to 
bursting. He steps briskly forward and de- 
posits hat and portfolio on the marble-topped 
table, and with arms outstretched toward the 
apparently not over-gratified Mouginot-Pechoin, 
exclaims : 

“ Here, in my arms ! upon my heart ! ” 

He embraces Uncle Victor, performs a pirou- 
ette and clasps to his bosom Mouginot-Tupin, 
who endeavors vainly to keep him off, and in 


64 MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 

the struggle has a narrow escape from choking 
himself with his jujube. This performance is 
followed by another pirouette ; this time Scipio 
bows before the haughty representative of the 
Tupins, and gallantly imprints a kiss on the tips 
of her fingers ; after that comes Mme. Mougi- 
not-Pechoin’s turn, who receives a kiss on each 
cheek, and M. Delorme’s, whose brown hand 
the newcomer seizes and shakes cordially. 

I watch the scene with eyes as big as saucers, 
and cannot but admire the easy grace and per- 
fect self-possession of this Scipio Mouginot, who 
has always to me appeared to be ill appreciated 
and whose providential appearance would seem 
to have in it something of the romantic. It 
was thus I had always beheld him in my dreams, 
thus I had imagined he would present himself 
before me, like a prince from fairyland. 

“ I am glad to see you all ! ” he continues, 
applying to his eyes a filmy cambric handker- 
chief edged with a deep orange-colored border, 
“ so glad I cannot restrain nw tears to be 
among my kin once more. I am just in from 
the Vosges, and could not pass through Villotte 
without stopping to embrace you all and make 
the acquaintance of my little nephews. Where 
are they? Ah, here is one,” says he, as his 
eyes light on me. “ This must be Jacques ; I 
know him by his black eyes. How he has 
grown — what a handsome >oy he is ! ” 

“Evil weeds grow fast,” Mme. Mouginot- 
Pechom sarcastically" interjects. 

He pays no attention to her remark, but 
lifts me in his arms, dandling me and kissing 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


65 


me on the cheeks. The rest of the company, 
as if dazed by the aplomb and buoyant spirits 
of this surprising man, stare at him in silence 
and hang back in an attitude of suspicion and 
distrust. At last he sets me down upon the 
floor, casts a rapid, Sweeping glance about him 
and, noticing the hostile, glum expression on 
the faces of the assemblage, exclaims : 

“Ah ca ! what is the matter here? One 
would take you for a bench of judges just after 
passing sentence on a criminal, judging from 
your solemn faces.” 

M. Dieudonne Jacobi takes it on him to 
reply. Hurt in his vanity not to have had his 
share of the accolades distributed by the new- 
comer, he desires to attract his attention and 
show that he, Jacobi, is not a nobody. With a 
deprecating droop of the shoulders and on his 
lips a propitiatory smile broad as a barn door : 

“ Monsieur,” he says, “ your words are truer 
than you thought for when you uttered them ; 
this is in very truth a family council, convened 
to deal with your nephew’s case.” 

“My nephew’s case?” my uncle Scipio 
echoes with a look of pained astonishment. 
“Ppor boy, what crime has he committed?” 

“ He has been insubordinate, as usual,” Mme. 
Mouginot-Pechoin replies, “ and his teacher ex- 
pelled him from the school.” 

Scipio Mouginot endeavors, with ill success, 
to assume an expression of severity ; a smile 
peeps out from beneath his frown. 

“Hum!” he murmurs, “that is bad. But 
after all, there is mercy for the sinner : it 


66 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


would grieve me deeply that the pleasure of 
seeing you all again after my long absence 
should be marred by this little fellow’s tears. 
This day ought to be distinguished by a white 
mark. Come, my dear friends, I hope that 
in return for the good news I bring you you 
will grant me Jacques’s pardon.” 

“ What is your good news ? ” Uncle Victor 
gruffly asks. 

“News of an invention of which the value is 
simply inestimable, an invention that is des- 
tined to be more prolific of wealth than a Cali- 
fornia placer. I have struck the vein at last ! ” 

“ What is it all about, w T hat does he mean by 
his vein ? ” little Mouginot-Tupin asks in his 
idiotic way. 

“I have succeeded in inventing,” Uncle 
Scipio grandiloquently continues, “I have suc- 
ceeded in inventing a process for the manufact- 
ure of a new cloth for uniforming the army, a 
strong, reliable cloth that will never wear out, 
that will be cool in summer and warm in win- 
ter ; a hygienic cloth that will assure the health 
of the soldier, and of which the cost of manu- 
facture is marvelously cheap. My invention 
will be a benefit to the race and to the country ; 
it is destined to revolutionize the trade in army 
cloths. I have taken out a patent ; it is here,” 
he exclaims, dramatically tapping on the cover 
of his morocco portfolio. “ The Minister of 
War has given me assurances of his good-will, 
and I have at my back capitalists who are not 
to be daunted by any expenditure of money. 
We have organized a company with a 'capital 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


67 


of a million, represented by two thousand 
shares of five hundred francs each ; they have 
nearly all been taken up and are already 
quoted at a premium on the Bourse. So, my 
friends, you see there is reason why we should 
rejoice and be merry and kill the fatted calf. 
These are not idle words, they are accomplished 
facts. I have just returned from the Vosges, 
where I have been buying a factory for the 
treatment of the raw material and the fabrica- 
tion of our goods. Within a month we shall be 
receiving orders from the government, and be- 
fore the year is out we shall be taking in money 
by millions. I desired that you, my relatives 
and friends, should be first to hear of my great 
success, and I congratulate myself the more on 
my good fortune that it will permit me, imme- 
diately on my return to Paris, to fully reim- 
burse my brother Victor for all the advances 
he has made on my account.” 

These last words have the effect of smooth- 
ing the wrinkles from my uncle Victor’s brow. 
As for me, I am completely under the spell ; 
my gaze dwells with religious awe on the 
countenance of this persuasive millionaire, 
whose every word as it drops from his lips 
seems to me like a glittering gold coin fresh 
from the mint. The others of the assemblage, 
too, I can see are not far from sharing my sen- 
timents ; Uncle Scipio’s fecundity has produced 
a sudden revulsion. The patent, the assurances 
of the Minister, the purchase of the factory in 
the Vosges, the stock quoted above par — all 
these things have a substantial, truthful, offi- 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


f>8 


cial air about them which makes a very decided 
impression on these worthy bourgeois of Vil- 
lotte, accustomed as they are to regard any one 
having an income of five thousand francs as a 
Croesus. Mme. Mouginot-Tupin begins to think 
that Scipio has a “ very distinguished air her 
husband appears to have had the breath knocked 
out of him by the unusual torrent of eloquence, 
and fruitlessly racks his brain to discover what 
relation there can be between army cloth and 
that vein which his brother asserts he has 
struck. M. Dieudonne Jacobi is completely 
subjugated by the high-sounding phrases of the 
Parisian's harangue. M. Delorme and my aunt 
Mouginot-Pechoin are the only ones who remain 
obdurate to the charm. Uncle Scipio, seeing 
that the lady makes no offer to open her pursed- 
up mouth, turns to her with an insinuating 
smile : 

“ I have something for you here, my sister/ ’ 
says he. 

He dives down into the pocket of his overcoat 
and brings up a pretty little leather-covered 
box in which, upon his opening it, I behold vari- 
ous small implements of gleaming steel : scis- 
sors, thimble, bodkin, etc. 

“ Until I can give you something more wor- 
thy of you/’ he goes on, “ permit me to offer 
you a souvenir of Plombieres. A workbox. 
It could not be placed in better hands than 
those of a woman who loves her home and 
stands in my eyes as the representative of all 
the domestic virtues/’ 

Aunt Victor at last condescends to smile. 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


69 


Ungraciously muttering her thanks, she pock- 
ets the box, and it is evident that she is not dis- 
pleased with the attention. 

“You won’t refuse me Jacques’s pardon,” 
Scipio says, insistently, and bows. 

“ It is no affair of mine,” she sourly answers ; 
“ address yourself to your brother.” 

Uncle Victor merely shrugs his shoulders. 

“ But where is my nephew Aristide? ” Uncle 
Scipio inquires with newly awakened interest. 

“ At school. He works ; he is a comfort to 
us, that one is ! ” my aunt replies. 

“ He won’t come home until evening,” adds 
Uncle Victor. “ Come and take dinner with 
us, and you will see him.” 

“ I will accept your invitation, but on con- 
dition that you breakfast with me at the Hotel 
du Cygne, where I am staying, and bring 
Jacques with }mu. I left a little girl at the 
hotel with whom I hope my nephews will make 
friends.” 

“ A little girl ! ” cries Uncle Victor, his face 
suddenly clouding over again ; “ do you mean 
to say you have a little girl now? ” 

“ She is not mine ; she is the daughter of one 
of our directors. The doctors ordered her away 
to the mountains for her health and I am bring- 
ing her home to her parents.” 

The explanation restores the druggist’s equa- 
nimity. He in no wise objects to a good break- 
fast, being a little of a gourmet , especially 
when he does not have to put his hand in his 
pocket to pay for it. After a good many un- 
gracious objections he finally consents to honor 


70 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


the feast with his presence and bring 1 me with 
him. 

“And you, too, Palamede?” says Uncle 
Scipio, turning to Mouginot-Tupin ; “you are 
with us, aren’t you.? ” 

Palamede would accept with alacrity if left 
to himself, but Mme. Mouginot, nee Tupin, has 
other views. 

“ Thank you, Monsieur Scipio,” she dryly an- 
swers, “ Palamede is compelled to diet and 
never eats outside his own house.” 

Scipio Mouginot smiles, gathers up his port- 
folio and his pearl-gray hat, salutes the ladies 
in gallant style, bows rather stiffly to M. De- 
lorme and Lawyer Jacobi, and then the three 
of us make our way downstairs to the phar- 
macy, where Uncle Victor gives his apprentice 
an apparently interminable string of directions. 
At last we are outside upon the street ; I draw 
a deep breath of relief to have got off so easily. 
I bless kind Providence for the opportune inter- 
vention of the uncle from Paris. I lengthen my 
stride to suit the step of the two brothers, and 
with pleasant anticipations of what is before me 
pursue my way toward the Hotel du Cygne, 
whose white fagade shines like a beacon of 
hospitality in the bright sunshine. 


CHAPTER V. 

Matters in themselves comparative^ unim- 
portant often leave a wonderfully vivid impres- 
sion on the juvenile mind ; a fortuitous, entirely 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


71 


trivial circumstance will make a mark there 
that shall be indelible through a long course 
of years, while later in life, when manhood is 
reached, events of far greater moment leave 
barely a trace behind them. It is thus that my 
memory retains every slightest detail of that 
breakfast of which I partook at the Hotel du 
Cygne in company with my two uncles. , I have 
a distinct vision of the great dining-room on the 
ground floor, with its two windows looking on 
the street, its wall-paper in imitation of oaken 
wainscoting, the earthenw r are stove in its re- 
cess, the long table d’hote garnished with rows 
of plates, on which pyramids of fruit alternate 
with artificial flowers in pots. By one of the 
corner windows is a round table which, by 
Uncle Scipio’s direction, has been set for a 
party of four, and on each plate is an im- 
maculately white napkin artistically folded to 
represent a bishop’s miter. Lurking in the 
folds of each napkin rests a little roll with ap- 
petizingly glazed and golden crust ; such rolls 
are never seen on Aunt Mouginot’s table. The 
display is a delight to the eye, and is alluringly 
suggestive of ideas of good cheer. Uncie 
Scipio excuses himself for a moment and re- 
turns leading b\^ the hand a little maid of ten, 
beholding whom I am at once thrown into a 
religious fervor of admiration. 

“ This is my young friend Alice,” he says to 
Uncle Victor. Then, turning to me, he adds : 
“ I hope that you two will be good friends, 
Jacques. Come, give her a kiss ! ” 

M. Victor Mouginot restricts himself to a 


72 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


muttered ff Good-morning-, child ! ” of which 
the intonation is not any too amiable. As for 
me, I step forward timidly, devoutly, toward 
the little girl, my eyes distended wide with 
wonder ; she seems too ethereal to he touched 
mortal hands, and I barely touch my lips to 
her satiny cheek, so superior in elegance and 
refinement does this delicate creature appear 
to the children of my acquaintance. 

The truth of the matter is that she has the 
air of a little princess, has Alice, with her skirt 
of Scotch plaid and corsage of black velvet 
bands arranged crosswise over a white chem- 
isette, her slender ankles incased in knee-high 
gaiters of brown cloth, her small feet shod with 
the most ravishing boltines of bronze kid ! Her 
slenderness makes her appear taller than she 
is ; her skin is very white — too white, indeed — 
and she has great brown eyes and an opulence 
of wavy black hair that tumbles, torrent-fash- 
ion, down upon her shoulders. The darkness of 
the eyes in their setting of bluish sclerotica, the 
ink t v blackness of the billowy hair, serve still 
further to accentuate the pallor of her complex- 
ion. Added to all this, she has the pretty- ways 
and charming self-possession of a young lady 
grown ; and further, a gravity that disconcerts 
me. She is given a seat at my side. A waiter 
in black dress-coat and white tie brings in the 
dishes and ministers in silence to our wants. 
He places before us scrambled eggs, trout au 
court bouillon and beefsteak aux pommes soufflees , 
good things that are seen but seldom on the 
Mouginot-Peehoin’s table; but for all that, I 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


73 


pay not the slightest attention to what I am 
eating, so absorbed am I in watching the pretty 
way little Alice has of handling her knife and 
fork. From time to time she casts a sidelong 
glance at me from the corner of her eye, and a 
faint smile plays over her lips as she detects me 
in some breach of etiquette. Faithful to the tra- 
ditions of the Mouginot family, I am sawing 
away industriously with my knife at my crusty 
roll ; suddenly, Alice speaks up in her distinct 
and rather imperious voice : 

“ That’s not the way ; break the bread with 
your fingers ; don’t cut it ! ” 

The blood rushes to my face and the faculty 
of speech seems to have left me. Coming from 
any one else I should receive such a humiliating 
reproof with very bad grace ; but from the lips 
of the little Parisienne, the remark delights me 
greatly. I am pleased that my pretty neigh- 
bor honors me and my doings with her atten- 
tion ; I put aside the offending knife and 
servilely imitate the manner of breaking bread 
that she inculcates. My docility seems to 
afford her satisfaction, for she smiles on me in- 
dulgently and condescends to inaugurate a 
conversation. 

Is that your father ? ” she whispers, “ that 
wall-eyed gentleman who looks this way occa- 
sionally ? ” 

M. Victor Mouginot is engaged in an ani- 
mated conversation with his brother, who is 
demonstrating with great abundance of detail 
the superiority of his hygienic and patriotic in- 
vention, so that he does not hear what is being 


74 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


said across the table ; and fortunate it is that 
he does not, for otherwise he would not be 
deeply flattered by the outspoken comment on 
his visual organs made by my little neighbor, 
to whom I reply beneath my breath : 

“ No, that is my cousin Aristide’s father ; 
he is my uncle.” 

“ Ah ! and your father, where is he ? ” 

“ He is dead ; and so is my mother also.” 

“ My father is dead, too ; but I have mamma 
still. We live together, and she thinks the 
world of me.” 

“ Do you live away off there among the 
Vosges ? ” 

“ Oh, no — I live in Paris. I have been visit- 
ing an aunt at Gerardiner, to breathe the air 
of the pine forests ; I enjoyed myself pretty well 
there, because there are lots of flowers in the 
woods, but it is not Paris all the same. I shall 
be good and glad to be at home again ! ” 

“ Do children go to school at Paris ? ” 

“ Yes, other children ; but I don’t. Mamma 
keeps fne at home because I am not very well, 
don’t you see. She gives me my lessons and 
corrects my exercises.” 

“Do you have to study arithmetic ? ” 

“ Certainly ; and a great many other things.” 
“ Do you know division ? ” 

“ Why, yes. Is that so very surprising ? ” 
she answered, with a laugh. 

I give her a look of envy and admiration, 
then I add : “ Perhaps you have had the prob 
lem of the basin to do ? ” 

“ I think not. Besides, I am not very strong 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 75 

in figures. Wliat I like best is history— Louis 
XIV., Anne of Austria, Mazarin, the Musket- 
eers. I saw the ‘ Three Musketeers ’ once, at 
the Porte-Saint-Martin ; we go there once in a 
while of a Sunday with mother. Do you ever 
go to the theater ? ” 

ce What, I ? Never ! ” 

The mere thought of hearing her ask such a 
question in presence of Aunt Mouginot gives 
me a creepy sensation. Mme. Victor looks on 
“ play actors ” as people separated hopelessly 
from the elect, and considers the theater a place 
of perdition. Still, I cannot bear to let my 
new friend think that I inhabit a country of 
savages, and I add, with somewhat of an osten- 
tatious air : 

“Our folks don’t go. But there is a theater 
at Villotte, and a company that plays in it at 
carnival-time and at the Fodre de Mai.” 

My little friend turns up her pretty nose dis- 
dainfully and replies : 

“ Oh, yes ; country actors, I suppose. At 
Paris we have Frederick Lemaitre, Lacres- 
soniere — and Melingue ! Oh ! how I wish you 
could see Melingue in ‘La Jeunesse des Mous- 
quetaires ! ’ ” 

Then, with a fire and a preciseness of detail 
that fill me with amazement, she proceeds to 
give me an idea of the play and its characters ; 
D’ Artagnan, Athos, Porthos and Mordaunt, and 
the death of Charles I., and the blowing up of 
the ship. She describes the scenery, the cos- 
tumes, repeats bits of the dialogue for my bene- 
fit, and my admiration begins to transcend the 


76 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


bounds of reason for this ten-year-old child who 
is so pretty, so learned, so bright and animated ; 
who talks with such careless indifference of the 
difficulties of division, and goes with her mother 
to the play ! The music of her voice, the ex- 
pression of her brown eyes and the wonderful 
mobility of her features inspire me in succession 
with a series of rapturous ecstasies. She is quick 
to notice my admiration, for she is very intelli- 
gent and very observing ; she condescends to let 
herself be admired, and openly patronizes me 
and takes me under her protection. 

• We part excellent friends, and when she 
comes to our house at evening with Uncle 
Scipio I can feel my heart going pit-a-pat, 
merely at sight of her coming in at the door, 
her abundant brown hair surmounted by a most 
coquettish hat a la Pamela. 

For the family dinner that evening the board 
is spread, to quote M. Jacobi, “ on a scale of 
Eastern magnificence, regardless of expense.” 
There are a vol-au-vent, a roasted turkey, craw- 
fish and a ricecake — which is the very ne plus 
ultra of festivity at the pharmacy. “Lucullus 
dines to-day with Lucullus ! ” Lawyer Dieu- 
donne appositely exclaims as Adele appears 
with the turkey. 

Little Alice does not appear the least bit dis- 
concerted by the splendor of the banquet, which 
to me seems to express the very utmost limit 
of culinary sumptuosity. Her place at table 
is between me and Aristide, where she gives 
more of her attention to the guests than to the 
menu. There is a mocking, laughing light 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


77 


dancing* in her eyes, and by the disdainful pout 
of her red lips I can see that she looks on all 
these provincials of Villotte as so many strange 
animals. She talks with no one but me, and 
takes dainty little mouthfuls from the dishes 
that are placed before her. As if to make up 
for her reserve, Uncle Scipio outdoes himself in 
cordiality, expatiating vociferously on the juici- 
ness of the roast, the freshness of the shellfish 
and the sweetness of the home-made bread. 

“One has to come to the country to get 
wholesome things to eat,” he avers. 

And likewise, when he gets on his feet and 
makes a little speech eulogistic of the bouquet 
of the thin sour wine of Villotte, tears of tender 
regret stand in his eyes. In a word, he makes 
a conquest of the entire company, with the 
single exception of Grandma Pechoin, who is 
distrustful and reserved. 

When we rise from table to go and take coffee 
in the drawing-room, Alice draws me to one side 
and whispers : 

“ That boy who kept dipping his fingers in 
his gravy all through the dinner, is he your 
cousin ? ” 

“Yes, that’s Aristide. What do you think 
of him ? ” 

“ I think he’s horrid. He reminds me of 
a Punch' and Judj r show.” 

“And yet,” I reply with a tinge of bitter- 
ness, “he is the pet of the household, and 
every one thinks that I am nothing alongside 
him.” 

“That shows their bad taste,” little Alice 


TS 


MY TTXCLE SCIPIO. 


replies, eying* me from head to foot. i£ Yen 
are ever so much better-looking' than he " 

This opinion of the brown-eyed maiden is like 
balm poured on my ulcerated heart : she ap- 
proaches me on my weak side — to wit. my vanity 
— and this suffuses a most charming cerulean 1 ue 
over all the remainder of my evening, which is 
nevertheless superlatively tiresome. The grown 
people have got up a round game and appear 
to be enjoying themselves. Aristide, who was 
helped twice from every dish at dinner, throws 
himself unceremoniously upon the sofa and goes 
to sleep. Little Alice, who has either lost her 
tongue or else is overcome by the soporific ten- 
dencies in the atmosphere of the barnlike room, 
has ensconced herself in a fauteuil where, her 
chin resting on her hand and her eyes fixed 
dreamily upon the ceiling, she may be think mg 
of Paris, its pleasures and its spectacles. Awed 
by her silence and too much a stranger as yet 
to venture to interrupt her reverie, I have seated 
myself on a footstool, almost at her feet, and 
gaze on her with respectful tenderness, much as 
one might contemplate an idol or a little queen. 
My eyes rest with rapturous delight on the bil- 
lowy abundance of her black hair, caught up at 
the back of the neck with a bow of red ribbon : 
I admire the effect of the soft shadows that fall 
from her long, curved lashes across her pale 
cheek : a mad desire seizes me to bend over and 
press my lips to the tips of her little bronze 
boots. 

The pleasure that I derive from this mute 
adoration is such that I could willingly remain 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


79 


at my post on the footstool all night long. I 
would like that the hands of the clock should 
cease to move and that Alice should not stir 
from her fauteuil ; and yet, with strange- incon- 
sistency, I at the same time await impatiently 
the moment when the people shall rise to go, 
because at parting I hope to succeed in obtain- 
ing* another kiss from my new friend. 

Uncle Scipio seems to be of little Alice’s 
mind, to prefer me to Cousin Aristide and be 
favorably disposed toward me. Not only did 
he avert the thunders of the family council from 
my devoted head, but helias also been using his 
influence with the liard-hearted schoolmaster to 
make him reconsider his sentence of expulsion, 
and, thanks to the persuasive quality of^his 
mellifluous eloquence, has succeeded in appeas- 
ing the tyrant’s wrath. Pestel, who has the 
theory of fractions at his finger-ends, having 
discovered upon consideration that two half- 
boarders are better than one, consents to re- 
ceive me back again, and Uncle Scipio in person 
reconducts me to the fold. 

“ Come, Jacques,” says he, remarking the 
fluttering of my hand that he holds in his 
own, “ don’t be afraid — Pestel won’t eat you. 
You are not delighted at the prospect of going- 
back to him, which I can easily understand, 
having once seen the ugly mug of your dispenser 
of hash. But never mind, I have cut his claws 
for him, and you’ll find him as gentle as a 
lamb.” 

It appears quite natural to me that silver- 
tongued Uncle Scipio should have tamed the 


80 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


tiger Pestel; but I know that I — poor I — have 
not the uncle’s glorious gift, and something 
tells me that more than probably the master 
will “take it out ” of me in return for the cour- 
tesy shown Scipio Mouginot. The prospect does 
not tend to raise my spirits and my apprehen- 
sions are legible on my face. 

“ Poor little man,” Uncle Scipio continues, 
“ I’m afraid you don’t always have a very 
happy time of it at Villotte. The drug store is 
not the liveliest place in the world ? My brother 
Victor has a heavy hand, and his wife is not 
always kind to you, hey ? ” 

“Not always. Uncle Scipio.” 

“Very well, morbleu 7 If they make it too 
hard for you, come and hunt me up at Paris — 
you will be welcomed in my home with open 
arms. I will show you the great cit}% the seat 
of the arts and sciences, and I’ll put you in the 
way to make your fortune. The cloth business 
will soon be on its feet and you shall have a 
place in our office. I will see you have good 
cards to play, and, in place of rusting at Vil- 
lotte, we’ll make a Parisian of you — ” 

“ Thank you. Uncle Scipio ! ” 

My heart dilates within my bosom and I feel 
my courage returning as he speaks. The won- 
derful man has a gift of investing the common- 
est affairs of life with a halo of prismatic light ; 
he is a sorcerer, and everywhere he goes he ex- 
ercises his spell. He is hand and glove with 
the proprietress and waiters of the Hotel du 
Cygne, who bow and scrape until they almost 
break their backs whenever he opens his lips. 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


81 


Hr has succeeded in rendering* unbending* Uncle 
Victor comparatively supple, has smoothed 
down Aunt Mouginot ’s obtrusive angles and 
thawed the ice of the Mouginot-Tupins. These 
last have invited him to dinner, and, not to be 
behindhand, the Mouginot - Pechoins have ar- 
ranged a garden party in his honor at the Petit- 
Jure for the coming Thursday. 

As I look back to that summer afternoon 
among the woods, it is one of my most cher- 
ished memories. My aunt Mouginot, who has 
a dispensation from her neuralgia for that day, 
nimbly mounts Cadet, who trots along right 
merrily under the cheering influence of Uncle 
Victor’s droll refrains. M. Dieudonne Jacobi 
has assumed charge of Cousin Aristide, to 
whom he discourses on the harmonies of nature 
and who yawns portentously as he listens, so 
that I have little Alice all to myself. I enjoy 
myself hugely while exhibiting to her the won- 
ders of the forest and conducting her from one 
to another of my favorite resorts. Matters take 
a less agreeable turn, however, when on reach- 
ing our destination Aristide attaches himself to 
us like a burr and never once leaves us. He in- 
sists on accompanying us in our woodland walk 
and thrusts himself stupidly into our conversa- 
tion. 

“ He makes me tired, that cousin of yours ! ” 
little Alice whispers in my ear. 

“ Wait, we’ll see if we can’t get rid of him.” 

We make for a spot where the thicket is 
densest, and, while Aristide is hopelessly tangled 
up in a bramble patch, where the thorns lay 


82 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


hold of him by the trousers, we succeed in gain- 
ing' a side path. There I take Alice by the hand 
and we run as if our lives were at stake, paying 
no attention to Aristide’s repeated calls, whose 
struggles only serve to imbed him more firmly 
still among the brambles, and who shouts to us 
in tones of rage and terror : 

“ Hallo— hallo ! where are you ? ” 

“Here, this way,” little Alice mischievously 
replies, while she pulls me away in a direction 
directly opposite. 

We have left the wood behind us and are in a 
stretch of fallow land, where an occasional 
clump of ferns exhales in the hot sunshine an 
odor strong and pungent as that of the black 
currant. Before us the undulating plain, blaz- 
ing with light and bright with flowers, stretches 
away to meet the bluish haze of forest that 
forms the horizon. Above us, in the deep-blue 
sky, where the larks — an invisible choir — are 
practicing their joyous anthem, a few white, 
fleecy clouds are drifting lazily. Alice is quite 
out of breath after our mad scamper ; a scarlet 
flush is on her cheek ; the beating of her heart 
can be distinguished under the corsage of her 
frock of tartan plaid ; her luxuriant black hair 
is thick-set with green leaves captured from the 
bushes along her path. She sinks down among 
the ferns and I kneel at her feet. 

Then, by way of amusing her and to enhance 
my importance in her eyes, I relate to her the 
stories I have invented of the plain and its mys- 
terious purlieus ; I tell her that that blue strip 
she sees, far away in the distance, is the sea, 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


83 


and 'that, concealed in the depths of that vapoi- 
•ous forest to the left, is an enchanted castle. 
But little Alice is not the least like Aristide ; 
her imagination is not bound down to things of 
earth, and I soon see that, richer and more 
venturesome even than my own, it takes a 
longer and a stronger flight toward the land of 
faery. She has read quantities of books that I 
never heard of, and her head is an inexhaustible 
storehouse of old legends and talei^of adventure. 
She enters the realm of fantasy as if it were the 
home in which she has her being, and beside 
hers my poor little stories cut a pitiful figure. 

“ No, no ; that’t not the way it goes ! ” she 
interrupts with a positive air. s ‘ This is the 
forest of Broceliande; I am the fairy Vivien, 
and you are a knight of King Arthur’s court. 
You have crossed the forest at the peril of your 
life, and now are come to the desert where the 
enchanter Merlin is keeping me a prisoner by 
means of his wicked spells. You peep out from 
the edge of the wood and behold me in the 
midst of the great lonely plain, and you listen 
to my song — ” 

And then she begins to sing, in a charming 
little voice, low and sweet as robin redbreast’s : 

‘ La belle est au jardin d’amour 
Depuis un mois ou six semaines ; 

Sou pere la cherche partout 
Et sou ami est bien en peine — ’ ” 

“ And then,” I rapturously break in, “ I 
come galloping up and release you—” 

“ Oh, but wait a minute — the thing is not so 


84 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


easy as all that. I cannot stir on account of 
the spell that Merlin has cast on me, and I bid 
you go in quest of mandragora and marjolaine 
to break the charm. Come, be off with you, 
and hurry back ! ” 

I obey abjectly. I do not [succeed in finding 
either the mandragora or the marjolaine, but I 
bring back a great armful of flowering honey- 
suckle and twine the sweet-breathed plants 
into crowns, 'hashes and bracelets, with which 
I deck the girl’s head, waist and wrists. She 
is so charming thus that I go down on my knees 
in ecstasy before her, as if she were a saint. 

Little Alice receives it quite as a matter of 
course ; she is one of those beings who seem en- 
titled of right to adoration and do not hesitate 
to enforce their claim. She smiles on me com- 
placently through her floral regalia and receives 
my homage like a queen to whom it is no nov- 
elty. 

“And now,” she continues, “the charm is 
broken. I give you my lily-white hand and say 
to you : ‘Sir Knight, conduct me to your cas- 
tle/ ” and therewith extends her arm to me 
with a regal gesture. The larks are singing in 
the blue vault, the air is heavy with the per- 
fume of the honeysuckle, the charm of the mo- 
ment is inexpressible. I take the little hand, 
and tenderly, reverently raise it to my lips. 

Suddenly a strident voice salutes us from be- 
hind. 

“ What are you doing there ? ” 

Is it the enchanter Merlin appearing from the 
depths of air, or some maleficent fairy come to 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


85 


plague us? Neither the one nor the other; it 
is simply Aunt Victor Mouginot, who, drawn 
hither by the screech-owl cries of her Benjamin, 
has come hastening to the rescue and then has 
started forth in search of Alice and me. 

“ Why did you run awaj r from poor Aristide,” 
she continues in her harsh, grating voice, 
“just because he wanted to play with you? 
Come, get up from there, and be quick about 
it ! It’s indecent, a great boy and girl like you 
playing together all by yourselves. Shame on 
you ! ” 

This time the spell is broken for good and all. 
We follow her, grumbling' inwardly, while 
Aristide, gloating over our discomfiture, makes 
hideous faces at us and presents himself in the 
light of the mischief-making dwarf, who is the 
constant satellite of the wicked fairy. The re- 
mainder of our afternoon is no better than a 
dismal ruin, for my straitlaced aunt arranges 
matters so that little Alice and I shall be kept 
asunder. 

The next day Scipio Mouginot is to leave us. 
We accompany the travelers to the railway 
that has recently been constructed between 
Villotte and Paris. 

Uncle Scipio, fresh as a rose, in immaculate 
gloves and his light-gray overcoat, with his 
precious morocco portfolio under his arm, heads 
the column with Uncle Victor at his side. He 
carries his head erect and walks with something 
of a swagger, smiling patronizingly on the pro- 
prietress of the hotel and the waiters, who es- 
cort him to the door. One would swear that he 


86 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


lias the millions that the famous military cloth 
is to bring* in safe in his portfolio. Behind come 
little Alice, I and Aristide, the latter still ob- 
stinately bent on poking* his ugly face between 
us two. Beside the platform of the station the 
train stands waiting with open doors, while the 
locomotive fumes and chafes, emitting clouds of 
black smoke with a dull rumbling in its entrails. 
My heart is heavy, I can find nothing to say, 
and give the hand of my little friend a vigorous 
squeeze. 

“ Well,” says Scipio, w T hen he has selected a 
first-class compartment, before which he takes 
his stand, proud as a prince on his travels, 
“ well, Victor, the time has come when we must 
part, but you will hear from me before long ; 
and mark my words, the news will gladden 
your heart. Embrace me ! ” 

He gives the druggist a cordial hug, pats 
Aristide on the head, and raises me in his 
arms : 

“ Courage, Jacques,” he exclaims; “be a 
man and work hard ! ” Then, lowering his 
voice and clasping me more closely to his dec- 
orative shirt-front : “You know what I said to 
you — if they abuse you, come and look me up. 
You will find a warm welcome and be treated 
as if you were a son of my own.” 

“ All aboard, passengers for Paris, all 
aboard ! ” 

I have barely time to give little Alice a part- 
ing kiss. The doors are closed with a bang. 
Uncle Scipio pokes his head out from his open 
window and waves his hand to us, while, sur- 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


87 


rounded by a cloud of steam, the train crawls 
from the station and moves away over the long* 
line of rails that lie glittering- in the sunshine. 


CHAPTER VI. 

Uncle Scipio’s passage through Villotte 
may be likened to a dazzling meteor, flaming 
through the heavens for a moment only to van- 
ish on the horizon, leaving a faint trail of 
phosphorescent light behind. 

For some days after his departure the Paris- 
ian continues to furnish food for speculation at 
the pharmacy, where his new-born hopes of 
fortune form the staple of discussion ; but as 
week after week passes and nothing is heard 
from him, the wonderful results promised by 
the cloth business begin to be questioned. M. 
Dieudonne Jacobi, who is sore because Uncle 
Scipio did not treat him with the consideration 
his merits called for, is the first to hazard some 
specious criticisms; Grandma Pechoin observes 
that “ travelers’ tales are hard to verify,” 
Uncle Victor sneers and shrugs his shoulders, 
and Aunt Mouginot, in her shrewish voice, de- 
clares :• 

“ It is another cacade ; see if it isn’t ! ” 

The long and short of the matter is that the 
worthy folks begin to have a confused percep- 
tion that their credulity has been imposed on ; 
they rub their eyes in a shamefaced way, and 
the glamour of the charmer’s eloquence is dissi- 
pated. As the amount due for my board and 
lodging fails to materialize as promised, a flat 


88 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


denial is given to the proposition that Uncle 
Scipio is a man of genius, and the druggist 
even goes to the length of calling him “ an ar- 
rant humbug. ” And so, little by little, the 
pharmacy recovers its former humdrum monot- 
ony, existence begins to flow again in the same 
old dull, lifeless stream, and every one seems to 
have imposed it as a duty on himself to bury 
Scipio Mouginot and his actions in profound ob- 
livion. 

But not quite eveiy one, for I am not a sharer 
in the general disenchantment, and in my eyes 
Uncle Scipio retains his prestige unimpaired — 
nay, even increased by the aureole that is dif- 
fused about him by the bright memory of little 
Alice. The passage athwart my prosaic school- 
boy life of this dainty little creature, so elegant 
in all her ways, exhaling such a subtle, exqui- 
site odor of Paris, is like a page of romance. 
Her acquaintance had awakened in me .a class 
of sentiment hitherto unknown : a sudden in- 
tuition of the magic charm that resides in femi- 
nine grace, a dawning of chivalric worship for 
the fair-faced, brown-eyed child who has be- 
witched me with her beauty and her precocious 
wealth of imagination. Until then my thoughts 
bad never lingered on the little girls whom I 
encountered at church or on the street ; I looked 
on them as a class of beings inferior to boys, 
weaker and less expert at games, inclined to be 
airish and affected, always intruding where 
they were not wanted — and that was all. How 
I make a business of observing the girls whom 
I meet and comparing them with my ideal, and 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


89 


the result is altogether in Alice’s favor ; I find 
them ill-dressed, stupid and coarsely hoydenish 
in presence of the memory of my pretty Pari- 
sienne. 

At Pestel’s, while recitations are going on, I 
ensconce myself in the corner formed by the 
wall and the end of the bench where I have my 
seat, and, closing my eyes, indulge in dreams 
of little Alice, crowned with honeysuckle, bend- 
ing on me her deep-brown eyes and giving me 
her lily-white hand. What is she doing now 
while I sit dreaming of her ? Has she forgot- 
ten me amid the splendors and delights of that 
Paris she loves so well ? Shall I see her again 
some day, and, if I do, will she condescend to 
remember our friendly walks and talks among 
the woods of the Petit- Jure ? 

I ask myself these questions, turning them 
over and over in my mind with a secret sense 
of satisfaction, but not tr}dng to answer them, 
preferring rather that they should float on the 
smooth summer sea of indeterminateness, like 
flowers mirrored in the bosom of a stream, that 
the ceaseless flow of the current rocks with an 
uninterrupted caressing motion, without giving 
them a moment’s rest or causing them a mo- 
ment’s weariness. I abandon myself to my 
reveries and am lapped in deepest delight when 
suddenly I am summoned back to earth again 
by a voice that sputters : 

“ Mouginot (Jacques), you will do me the 
favor to conjugate twice over the verb : f I 
gaze at the ceiling instead of studying my les- 
sons ’!” 


90 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


As little Alice’s image is the charm that dis- 
pels the tedium of my hours of study, so also is 
it the sole companion of my holidays. When- 
ever we go out to the “ property ” to spend the 
afternoon, I unceremoniously abandon Aristide 
to his devices and make the solitary pilgrimage 
to the fields that we visited, Alice and I, one 
July afternoon. The ferns that she pressed 
with her little foot have not raised their heads, 
their slender fronds still retain the impress of 
her girlish form. To the spot where she sat and 
held her state I bring big white stones and there 
erect a sort of altar ; the central portion, which 
I have made hollow, I fill with dry twigs and 
bits of wood, and in it — mindful of what I have 
been reading recently — light a fire in honor of 
my fairy Vivien ! From the shrubs and bushes 
round about I suspend garlands of honeysuckle, 
and upon the coals blazing on the altar I strew 
stalks of wild thyme and branches of juniper, 
from which the aroma-laden smoke rises on the 
still air. And as the azure wreaths ascend — so 
thin, so evanescent — they remind me of little 
Alice’s airy, graceful form. 

The da3^s fly by, one after another, and with 
the first mists of October and the last songs of 
the vintage my vacation draws to an end. I 
resume my place in Pestel’s school, and as my 
twelfth birthday is now close at hand, devote 
much of my attention to the catechism in prep- 
aration for my first communion. Ceasing to be 
one of the unregenerate I am become a sort of 
mystic, and in my newly acquired mysticism 
little Alice’s image undergoes a sort of meta- 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


91 


morphosis : she is no longer the fairy Vivien, 
but is transformed into a darling little saint of 
the Golden Legend, a saint white and fragile as 
a lily. I have attacks of pious zeal every now 
and then ; I form good resolutions and make up 
my mind to work hard and faithfully in order 
to acquire the knowledge necessary to do credit 
to the position Uncle Scipio is keeping warm for 
me, and to render myself more wortf^ of little 
Alice. But my good resolves all fall to the 
ground in presence of the insufferable cruelties 
of my tyrant, the vulture Pestel. The man 1ms 
a fashion peculiar to himself of inculcating learn- 
ing into the youth intrusted to his care : he 
beats it into them with the ferule, and strives 
to impress it on their memory with impreca- 
tions and injurious epithets uttered in Gascon 
dkilect. It does not take me long to become 
disgusted with this Spartan regimen ; I suffer a 
relapse into my old sin of idleness and dete- 
riorate again into a “ dunce, ” as Uncle Victor 
takes pleasure in repeating to the echoes of the 
drug store. Tasks and punishments of every 
sort are rained on my devoted head, my weekly 
reports are invariably bad, and the ancient ter- 
rors of my pitiful Saturday night home-coming 
recur with deplorable regularity. 

At night, when I retire to the little room that 
the exemplary Aristide and I occupy in com- 
mon, my repugnance for school and all con- 
nected with it amounts to positive loathing, and 
I am sore with the tongue-lashing received at 
the hands of the Mouginot-Pechoins. Then, 
curled in my little b^d and feigning slumber, I 


92 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


revolve in mind the parting* words of Uncle 
Scipio : “ If they abuse 3 T ou, come to me ; you 
will be received with open arms.” Rebellious 
thoughts, ideas of desertion begin to assume 
form within my head, and I yield myself to new 
and pleasurable dreams, which all radiate from 
the central project of cutting loose from the 
pharmacy. I behold myself leaving home some 
fine morning, and, instead of heading for Pes- 
tel’s school, taking the road that leads to 
Paris. How I am to make the long journey 
and subsist by the way is a matter that does 
not greatly worry me ; I have a trustful belief 
that the innkeepers along the road, thanks to 
my good looks, will afford me their hospitality 
gratis, and that good-natured wagoners will 
give me an occasional lift. Is it not thus that 
matters shape themselves in certain narratives 
I have read ? Then one night I shall alight at 
Paris and ask where Uncle Scipio lives. There 
will be no difficulty in finding him ; for every 
one must know his house, and, besides, I have 
his address in black and white on the fly-leaf of 
my grammar, having taken pains to set it down 
one day that Uncle Victor gave it to the pro- 
prietress of the Hotel du Cygne in my hearing. 
Uncle Scipio’s place of residence is No. 118 Fau- 
bourg Saint-Martin. Armed with this infor- 
mation I cannot go astray. As soon as I am 
safely housed and shall have embraced my 
uncle, I will ask him to show me the way to lit- 
tle Alice’s. I know that she lives not far away. 
She told me so. I will ascend the stairs on tip- 
toe, will open the door ever so softly and pre- 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


93 


sent myself before her like the knight-errant of 
whom she told me that day in the field of the 
Petit- Jure; and, like the fairy Vivien in her 
bower of ferns, she will extend to me her lily-- 
white hand. 

These castles in the air, reared, demolished 
and rebuilt many times’ each night, help to con- 
sole me for my hard times at PestePs and the 
snubs and sarcasms of Uncle Victor. The school 
year, meantime, is drawing to a close, and it is 
not without a certain feeling of uneasiness that 
I contemplate the approach of the time when 
the awards of merit are to be distributed ; not 
that I care a fig for the paper crowns and books 
in sheepskin binding that Pestel presents to his 
deserving scholars, but it wounds my pride 
most cruelly to be taken for an ignoramus by 
those parents and persons of note who receive 
an invitation to the ceremonies. I managed to 
escape the mortifying experience last year ; but 
this time Pestel, with an eye to advertising his 
establishment, has seen fit to convert the so- 
lemnity into a public function. He has sent in- 
vitations to the clergy and the municipality, 
and has written to the parents urging that all 
the pupils shall be present at the reading of 
the roll of honor. As Aristide expects to hear 
his name mentioned frequently, my aunt has 
decided that I am not to absent ni3 T self on this 
occasion, which will be to me “a lesson and an 
example. ” 

Aristide has been fitted out anew from top to 
toe in honor of the event ; he has a brand-new 
suit of goosebenw^-colored cotton velvet jacket, 


94 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


0 

waistcoat and trousers, made specially to order 
for him. When togged out in his new integu- 
ments, red as a beet from head to foot, with the 
exception of his tallowy face, my cousin bears a 
striking resemblance to a candy image in a con- 
fectioner’s window. In his own eyes, however, 
he is very fine in his suit of cheap velvet, the 
creases of which reflect the light suspiciously. 
He is constantly going to the mirror to admire 
himself, and casts pitying looks on my thread- 
bare blue jacket. Since noon he has been strut- 
ting up and down the shop so as to exhibit him- 
self to the customers in all the glory of a model 
boy, whose honors will constitute a load too 
heavy for his shoulders. 

It is one o’clock in the afternoon when Mme. 
Victor Mouginot-Pechoin at last makes her ap- 
pearance, dressed in her poult de soie gown, 
with a cashmere shawl of domestic manufact- 
ure over her shoulders and on her head a hat 
surrounded by a wreath of pansies. She takes 
Aristide under her umbrella, for the rain is com- 
ing down in torrents, and we turn our steps 
toward the schoolhouse, the wide double doors 
of which are thrown open to their full extent. 

Pest el has done things handsomely. The 
great dormitory has been transformed into a 
lecture-hall and decorated with flowers and foli- 
age; a promiscuous crowd is packed in there 
densely and fills every inch of space in front of 
the long table covered with green baize, on 
which is a great display of books and tinsel 
crowns, and behind which are seated in state 
the cures, vicars and a few of the city fathers. 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


95 


The pupils are seated in two rows along the 
walls, and the hand of the National Guard, sta- 
tioned at the further end of the hall, proclaims 
the opening of the exercises by a furious blow- 
ing of horns and banging of the big drum. Pes- 
tel, in dress-coat and white tie, looks longer and 
lanker than usual and has more than ever the 
appearance of a bald-headed bird of prey. He 
rises to his feet, waves the sheets of paper he 
holds in his hand as a signal for silence, and 
mouthingly declaims a prolix, tiresome ha- 
rangue, manifestly stolen from some treatise 
on pedagogy. The dignitaries, civil and eccle- 
siastical, nod approvingly from the depths of 
their comfortable easy-chairs and occasionally 
pinch themselves slyly on the leg to keep from 
falling asleep. The parents, not so conspicu- 
ously placed, oppose less resistance to the influ- 
ence of the Pestelian oratory and slumber peace- 
fully on their wooden chairs. A blare from the 
wind instruments sufficient to demolish the walls 
of Jericho, a terrific thump on the bass drum, 
arouses them with a start ; the harangue has 
reached an end and an usher proceeds to call 
the roll of honor. A fanfare of trumpets salutes 
the names of the victors ; they pass before me 
and I see them go up and make their bow in 
front of the platform, receive the congratula- 
tions of a priest or councilman, and return 
proudly to their places with their gayly deco- 
rated volumes. Aristide has four prizes and 
five accessits, and each time he steps forward, dis- 
playing his gooseberry-colored suit against the 
green of the table-cover, it would seem as if 


96 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


the brass instruments, maddened by the dis- 
cordant note, play with redoubled vigor. When 
he comes down he salutes me with a look of 
scornful pity, and declines his head on Aunt 
Victor’s domestic camePs-hair, who embraces 
him and makes a pretense of wiping away some 
tears. I do not stir hand or foot, concealing 
myself behind the broad backs of my country 
schoolmates and making myself as inconspicu- 
ous as possible. 

For all that I cannot help fancying that every 
eye is bent on me ; it seems to me that I can 
read, writ in plain letters on the faces of par- 
ents, priests and city fathers : “ Not even an 
accessit ! What a dunce ! ” And there is no 
denying the fact that this unkind reflection is 
distinctly legible in my Aunt Victor’s yellow 
eyes and on the sneering countenance of Aris- 
tide, who takes manifest pleasure in parading 
ostentatiously before my gaze his gilded crowns 
and volumes of Marne’s library. I begin to feel 
the “ mustard getting into my nose,” and am 
strongly tempted to pay my respects to my 
insupportable cousin in the shape of a sound 
thump ; it is time the ceremonies should 
end — 

To the notes of a final fanfare the audience 
rises and seeks the street. It is no longer rain- 
ing, but the roadway is become a lake of mud, 
of the color and consistency of yellowish cream. 
Aunt Mouginot has all she can attend to to hold 
up her skirts and respond to the loud-voiced con- 
gratulations of her acquaintances, and has left 
us — Aristide and me — far in the rear. I march 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


97 


along' beside my cousin, who, embarrassed with 
his wealth of crowns and prizes, skirts the mar- 
gin of the muddy roadwaj' and dares not at- 
tempt to cross it. 

“ Look out,” I say to him, ironically, “ you 
will spoil your fine gooseberry-colored suit.” 

•'• You can see for yourself,” he replies, with 
a supercilious air, “ that I can’t turn up my 
pantaloons. My arms are full of books — ” 
And therewith he perks up his head, strutting 
and bridling like a peacock spreading his tail. 
“ Your hands are at liberty,” he continued, in 
a dictatorial tone ; all the prizes that you got 
won’t bother you much. Turn up the bottoms 
of m} r trousers, will you P ” 

He tries my patience beyond endurance, this 
insufferable cousin of mine, with his airs of su- 
periority. Does he think I am his lackey ? My 
eyes take in the expanse of liquid mud and 
thence travel back to the fine crimson suit, and 
a diabolical scheme of revenge enters my head. 
I stoop down as if to do his bidding, and while 
he, all unconscious of my fell design, innocently 
extends his leg, with a sudden push I send the 
exemplar of all the virtues tumbling, flat on his 
face, in the yellowish mud. The books are scat- 
tered in every direction upon the filthy ooze, the 
crowns go floating down the gutter, and I, like 
the little hypocrite I am, proceed with a great 
show of alacrity to collect the scattered tro- 
phies, leaving meanwhile Aristide to bawl and 
blubber at his ease in his bed of creamy mud. 

At last some one picks him up. Great 
Heavens, what a state he is in ! The entire 


98 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


front of the fine red suit is plastered with a de- 
posit of moist, adhesive earth ; he looks like a 
form of gooseberry jelly garnished with a coat- 
ing of apricot paste. Aristide’s face has fared 
no better than the rest of his person ; the tears, 
trickling down his cheeks, have cut great chan- 
nels through the superincumbent grime. Chok- 
ing with rage and unable to enunciate for his 
sobs, he points at me with a denouncing finger. 
Mme. Victor Mouginot, who has hastened to the 
scene of the disaster at the best speed she is 
capable of, turns fairly green. 

“A brand-new velvet suit! ” she stammers, 
in trembling tones. “ How did this thing hap- 
pen?” 

“ Jacques pushed me — on purpose ! ” Aristide 
replies, amid a storm of sobs. 

“ I thought as much ! ” Mme. Mouginot de- 
clares, in a voice sibilant with anger ; “ that 
boy was born with instincts of depravity. It 
was envy — nothing but his wicked, black- 
hearted envy — that prompted him to this 
abominable action. Come along, you little 
wretch; your case shall have attention ! ” 

She seizes me by the arm, while at her other 
side crawls Aristide, a sorry spectacle with his 
streaming garments, and, amid the indignant 
exclamations of the crowd, drags us off toward 
the pharmacy. She is mastered by her anger 
to that degree that she is wholly unmindful of 
her precious poult de soie gown, the bottom 
of which trails pitifully in the mire and water. 

We are in a breathless condition on reaching 
our destination. Mme. Mouginot flings back 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


99 


the door and sails into the shop as if propelled 
by a tornado, deposits Aristide in muddy state 
upon a bench, and hales me before Uncle Vic- 
tor, who is speechless with amazement. 

“ Behold ! ” she screams, “another of your 
worthless nephew’s pretty tricks ! ” 

At first the drug-gist fails to grasp the situa- 
tion ; then, when his wife has recovered breath 
sufficiently to explain the extent and nature of 
my crime, he knits his brows in a terrible 
frown. 

“It is an ill-conditioned brute,” he growls, his 
rage mounting to a white heat, “but I will see 
if I can’t prevent him from doing further mis- 
chief. Until I make up my mind what is to be 
done with him he shall go and take up his resi- 
dence in the old workroom.” 

Whereon he grasps my arm with a- nip that 
pinches like the claw of a lobster. In a trice I 
find myself immured between four bare walls, 
with no companion save my remorse. 

Remorse ? Do I really feel remorse ? It is 
quite certain, and I do not attempt to deny it, 
that the method I adopted of getting even with 
Aristide had but little of the chivalrous to rec- 
ommend it. I took an unfair advantage of his 
stupidity in order that his pride might have a 
fall. But what of it ? It would have done no 
good to challenge him to fight it out, for he is 
so pigeon-livered he would have run away. 
Besides, why did he keep provoking me with his 
conceited airs, and why did he address me as if 
I were his servant ? He got no more than he 
deserved — he won’t be so proud of his goose- 


100 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


berry-colored suits in future. Didn’t he cut a 
pretty figure when he came out from his mud 
bath? I cannot help laughing as I think of 
the ridiculous picture Aristide presentes as he 
lay sprawling in the puddles of yellow mud and 
water, and my hilarious fit dissipates whatever 
remorse I may have felt momentarily. No, on 
the whole I am not sorry for the damage sus- 
tained b}^ his fine cotton- velvet suit — I would 
do it again if the occasion offered. 

In the meantime, while Adele in the kitchen 
is scraping with a carving-knife the mud from 
my victim’s trousers and jacket, in the shop 
my fate is being decided and my sentence pro- 
nounced : when school opens in October I am 
to go back to Pestel’s and remain in durance 
there as a boarder. 

But it is six weeks from now to the first of 
October, and during that time it seems there is 
no other course than to keep me at home. 
Mme. Victor Mouginot declares that she shall 
never feel that Aristide is safe so long as he 
and I are under the same roof. 

“Your nephew,” she repeats to Uncle Vic- 
tor, “ has every evil instinct ; if he is suffered 
to remain here he is capable of attempting the 
murder of my son ! ” 

The question of what is to be done with me 
proves a very intricate one. It is not practica- 
ble to secure me a lodging-place outside, and, 
on the other hand, Uncle Victor feels some 
scruples of conscience about keeping me incar- 
cerated for weeks in the disused laboratory. 
The discussion is protracted, and every one pro- 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


101 


poses some way of solving* the difficulty. Mean- 
while I continue to vegetate in my prison, 
whither my meals are brought me twice each 
day. When Adele is otherwise occupied it is 
the apprentice, Arsene Camus, who fills the po- 
sition of turnkey. 

Arsene Camus is a tall, flaxen-haired young 
man of two-and-twenty, with timid manners 
and kindly, expressionless, bovine eyes. One 
evening, when he has deposited my bread, meat 
and vegetables on top of the range, he stands 
loitering by the door and murmurs diffidently : 

“ A melancholy vacation you are having, 
Monsieur Jacques ! ” 

Instead of replying to this overture I assume 
a freezing air and devote my entire attention to 
t he dish of boiled beef he has placed before me ; 
but Arsene is not to be rebuffed thus, and, hav- 
ing first cleared his throat with a loud ‘hem ! 
goes on to develop his proposition : 

“ You find it pretty uncomfortable here, don’t 
you ? ” 

(It is more than prett3 r , it is very uncomfort- 
able in the old laboratory, where it is pitch dark 
at five o’clock ; but not for an empire would I 
admit it.) 

“ Oh, no, Arsene, I assure you I do not ; one 
gets used to it, you know.” 

f * But it may be that they will keep you here 
longer than you think for,” replies the apprent- 
ice, “ and after a while you will begin to tire of 
it. The folks out there don’t like the idea of 
letting you run with Aristide after the trick 
you played him, and they are puzzling their 


102 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


brains to know what to do with you between 
now and the time when you are to go and board 
at Pestel’s. And so, while I was listening* to 
them discussing* the question just now, I had 
an idea. Monsieur Jacques.’ ’ 

“ What is your idea, Arsene ? ” 

“ The fete of the folks at home falls on the 
day of Notre Dame in September, which is Sun- 
day next, and every 3 r ear at this time M. Mou- 
ginot gives me a day or two off to let me have 
a chance to go to Tremont and see my parents. 
If you think well of it. Monsieur Jacques, I 
might propose to the boss to let me take you 
down there with me and leave you there. 
Tremont is only a stone’s throw from Jean- 
d’heurs, where you have relatives. Once away 
from here you might kill two birds with one 
stone and go and pass the rest of your vacation 
with your cousins, the Delorme-Grodards, who 
would be glad to see you. What do you think 
of it ? ” 

What do I think of it ? Forsooth, I find 
Arsene’s idea a most capital one ; five weeks of 
liberty, even in the country and spent with my 
cousins the Delormes, have a most alluring as- 
pect for me. But there is small likelihood that 
Uncle and Aunt Mouginot, in their present 
frame of mind toward me, will ever consent to 
give me the key of the fields. I express my 
fears to Arsene, who replies, with Spartan 
brevity : 

“That is my lookout. Are you willing I 
should lay the matter before your uncle as 
originating with me ? ” 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


103 


I give the good fellow the desired permission 
with the utmost readiness, but greatly fear he 
is deluding himself with false hopes. The visit 
to Tremont appears to me so problematical 
that I will not even suffer nryself to think of it. 

It must be, however, that my Aunt Victor is 
extremely anxious to be rid of me ; for, con- 
trary to my expectation, she raises no objection 
to Arsene’s request. Uncle Victor, abandoned 
to his free will, does not hesitate to give a favor- 
able answer ; with all his hardness and rigidfiy 
he does not inflict punishment for the sake of 
any pleasure he finds in it ; he is a great lover 
of peace and quietness, and doubtless considers 
there will be fewer rumpuses in the family when 
his nephew is once out of the way. On Satur- 
day morning, therefore, I am apprised that I am 
to have my bundle packed and ready, because 
I am to start for Tremont with Arsene that 
very same day at four o’clock in the afternoon. 

It is not necessary to repeat the order to me, 
and I go in search of my aunt to receive her final 
instructions ; she has nothing to say more than 
to declare with a shrug of her shoulders that it 
is very good of Arsene to saddle himself with 
the charge of a reprobate like me, and that he 
doesn’t know the trouble and annoyance he is 
preparing for himself. As for her, thank the 
Lord, she has no further concern in the matter, 
and will only say : “ Good-by, and a good rid- 
dance to bad rubbish ! ” Whereon I make my 
bow and go to make my adieus to Grandma 
Pechoin. 

The charming old lady is more indulgently in- 


104 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


dined than her daughter, and while taking me 
to task for my delinquencies, her natural good- 
heartedness prompts her to speak of a matter 
that had not given the Mouginots the slightest 
concern. 

“ Are you to be away for long, my child ? ” 
she asks. 

“ Until school opens again, probably, Mme. 
Pechoin.” 

“And did they give you a little spending 
money ? ” 

I answer in the negative, my pocket being 
quite empty. 

“Ah!” she exclaims, “that is just like M. 
Mouginot’s stinginess. What sense is there, 
I’d like to know, in sending this boy away 
among strangers and giving him no pocket- 
mone}^ ? ” 

It pleases her immensely whenever an oppor- 
tunity is afforded her of giving a cut at her 
son-in-law, whom she detests ; she shrugs her 
shoulders, rises, and goes and fumbles in her 
secretary, from which she extracts a coin that 
shines with a most agreeable luster. 

“You were a very naughty boy to treat poor 
Aristide as you did,” she goes on, “but that is 
no reason why they should send you off without 
a penny to your name. See, here is a louis of 
twenty francs for your small expenses. Don’t 
spend it foolishly, and try to be a good boy.” 

For a moment I look with stupefied amaze- 
ment on the glittering golden disk ; I cannot 
believe my senses. Then suddenly my eyes are 
bedewed with an access of grateful sensibility, 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


105 


and I cast myself weeping* into good Grandma 
Pecnoin’s arms. 


• CHAPTER VII. 

At four o’clock, just as the sun is beginning 
to decline toward the heights of Fains, and the 
windows in the Dominican convent are blazing 
with a ruddier hue, Arsene and I climb our way 
upward to the Paquis of the upper town, where 
the road leading to Tremont branches off from 
the main street. Arsene carries the small bun- 
dle that constitutes my entire baggage,*for the 
rest of my worldly effects are to be forwarded 
by wagon as soon as I am fairly housed with 
Cousin Delorme. I trot along joyously, glad 
to leave the pharmacy behind me, proud that I 
am taking the bit between my teeth. True, 
there is something on my mind that keeps ris- 
ing from time to time to make mj r happiness 
less perfect : it is the certainty that on my re- 
turn I am to be immured as a boarder in the 
dungeon of my enemy Pestel ; but I console 
myself with the reflection that I still have five 
weeks of liberty before me, and as at my age 
five weeks are an eternity, I think only of mak- 
ing the most of the present. 

To shorten our way we strike into the great 
wood of Combles. Even thus early the shad- 
ows are gathering thick beneath the tall old 
trees; at intervals few and far between the 
oblique rays of the setting sun penetrate the 
wood and illuminate it with splashes of red, 


106 MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 

mysterious light. When we have gone forward 
half an hour even the red splashes are seen no 
longer ; we seem to he pursuing our way amid 
the shades of night, when suddenly the dense 
foliage parts before us and we come out on the 
plateau, over which the purple glamour of twi- 
light is lingering still. 

Long, lumbering wains loaded with oat- 
sheaves are creeping slowly homeward, their 
moving silhouettes profiled in black against 
the sky-line ; here and there thin spirals of 
smoke arise on the calm air from fires where 
farmers are burning their potato tops, and the 
east wind brings to our ears the faint tinkling 
of church bells ringing in honor of the morrow’s 
fete. The plateau gradually begins to slope 
away ; from the depths of a thickly wooded 
gorge comes the sound of running water, the 
top of a spire is visible rising above a shadowy 
clump of trees, and Arsene tells me : 

ff We are nearly there.” 

Tremont is a village whose one single street 
winds in and out circuitously at the foot of 
three hills. A brook, that has its source among 
the mountains of the frontier and divides al- 
most immediately into two branches, laves the 
foundations of the houses with its whispering, 
tinkling current. Here and there a rustic stone 
bridge is thrown across the little stream, afford- 
ing communication between the roadway and 
the dwellings of the villagers, who are lulled 
night and day by the ceaseless chatter of the 
streamlet. 

Arsene pilots me across one of these bridges 


MY UNOLE SCIPIO. 


107 


and pushes inward a door which opens directly 
upon a large apartment, seemingly devoted to 
the twofold use of kitchen and dining-room. In 
less time than it takes to say Jack Robinson he 
is beset, surrounded ; his mother, a lean peas- 
ant woman with wrinkled face, clasps him about 
the neck, his father gives him a great slap on 
the back by way of welcome, his little brothers 
climb upon his shoulders. When the effusion 
of the boisterous greeting has in some measure 
subsided he introduces me : 

“ This is M. Jacques, the boss’s nephew and 
M. Delorme’s cousin.” 

The title “the boss’s nephew ” must carry 
with it great weight of influence among those 
worthy people, for immediately I am petted 
and pampered as if I were a little prince. 
Father Camus forces me into a chair over 
which is spread a sheepskin, which would seem 
to be the seat of honor ; Mother Camus throws 
upon the hearth an armful of twigs that blaze 
up merril3 r , the little Camuses eye me with re- 
spectful deference. It is right for me to confess 
that these marks of attention are greatly needed 
to assist me in overcoming the feeling of disap- 
pointment that I experience at first. M} r knowl- 
edge of life has been restricted to the Mouginot 
pharmacy and its neighborhood, I am entirely 
ignorant of the laborious and saving life our 
peasants lead ; moreover, my small head is 
stuffed with romantic dreams ; consequently 
the home of Arsene’s parents strikes me as 
very poor and colorless. 

I cast a discomfited glance to right and left 


108 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


of me ; by the light of the lamp suspended 
from the under side of the mantelpiece I take 
note of the floor of rough-hewn planks, the 
dark-brown walls decorated with primitive 
cooking utensils, the strips of bacon hung on 
hooks inserted in the rafters of the ceiling, the 
deep, soot-blackened fireplace in which a kettle- 
ful of potatoes is hanging from the crane ; 
finally, the vacant, expressionless faces of the 
two peasants, whose backs are prematurely 
bent by their daily labor in the vineyard. To 
me, a little city boy, accustomed to the com- 
parative luxury of the Mouginot abode, these 
country quarters seem mean in their unadorned 
rusticity and I cannot make myself at home 
there. 

The supper, which is served soon after our 
arrival, is not calculated to induce in me a 
more cheerful frame of mind. As is most fre- 
quently the case among the country folk of 
the Barrois, it consists of a quarter of bacon, 
potatoes and a salad of lettuce dressed with 
cream, the whole dished in porringers of glazed 
brown earthenware upon a table innocent of 
cloth, with a bottle of sour wine to wash it 
down. Although my walk has made me hun- 
gry I do not take kindty to my food, and I have 
the homesick air of a king’s son in exile among 
barbarians. And yet it is evident that the ex- 
cellent people are doing their best to please 
me ; Mother Camus brings in by way of des- 
sert a plateful of dried cherries and a piece of 
home-made bun. But everything is against 
me to-night : the dried cherries are all pit and 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


109 


there is no butter to spread on the sweetened 
bread ; my porringer is almost as full at the 
end of the repast as at the beginning. As soon 
as we rise from table I ask Arsene to show me 
to my bedroom, to w T hich he makes answer at 
first with an embarrassed smile. I reiterate 
my request, and then he explains to me apolo- 
getically that the family are greatly strait- 
ened for room ; he himself has to share the bed 
of his two small brothers, and it has been de* 
cided that I am to sleep at the schoolmaster’s. 
That is the last drop in the overflowing bucket. 
The idea of spending the night among stran- 
gers is excessively disagreeable to me, and 
while Arsene shoulders my bundle I follow him 
dejectedly along the dark, deserted street to 
the schoolhouse. 

The room allotted to me serves as dormitory 
for the master’s two boys, and when Arsene 
opens the door and shows me in the lads are 
already sound asleep. I take off my clothes 
with a sensation of embarrassment, observing 
the utmost precaution not to make a noise and 
awake my two roommates. It costs me an effort 
of the will to climb into the high, old-fashioned 
bed, where I am forthwith lost among the 
feathers and of which the coarse sheets rasp 
my skin. I sleep badly ; not a moment passes 
but I start from my slumber at some unaccus- 
tomed sound. I have a sensation of being lost 
and not knowing where I am, and terrors pos- 
sess my soul as I listen to the wheezy breath- 
ing of the sleepers, the plaintive murmur of 
the brook that flows before the house, the 


110 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


gnawing* of mice behind the wainscot. At last, 
however, just as it is growing* light, I drop off 
into a profound slumber from which I am 
abruptly aroused by shouts and peals of laugii- 
ter. The brilliant sunlig*ht, streaming* in 
through the curtainless window, strikes full 
upon my bed, and the master’s two boys, who 
have been awake this long time, are making 
merry over the spectacle afforded by the “ little 
city gentleman ” in his tasseled nightcap. My 
discomfiture increases under their coarse, rustic 
gayety, which is checked for a moment, but 
presently explodes again more noisily than 
ever. I dash the offending nightcap on the 
floor and get up, annoyed and irritated to have 
to endure the inquisitive gaze of these two hob- 
bledehoys while dressing. And so, when Ar- 
sene finally appears to deliver me from the 
company of the young savages, the first ques- 
tion I put to him betrays my pitiably uncom- 
fortable condition of mind. 

“Arsene,” I say to him, “ when are you 
going to take me to my cousin’s ? ” 

Good-natured Arsene has only to look at my 
long face to see that I am not enchanted with 
my visit to Tremont. He blushed slightly. 

“ You arc not having a very good time of it 
with us, I am afraid, Monsieur Jacques,” he 
replies with a penitent air ; “in the country, 
you know, we can’t have everything just as we 
would like to have it. I had intended to wait 
until after high mass before taking you to M. 
Delorme’s, but as the time seems long to you 
ve’ll make a start at once.” 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


Ill 


He puts my bundle under his arm, and hav- 
ing 1 said good-by to the Camuses, father and 
mother, we proceed on our way. 

Jeand’heurs is a venerable abbey situated on 
the bank of the Saulx, in the midst of a mag- 
nificent growth of old trees which cover the 
entire slope of the valley on one side. The 
Saulx, whose emerald-green waters are alive 
with fish, meanders lazily through a secular 
park whose copses have been thinned in spots 
to afford vistas of rich meadows, cultivated 
fields and villages basking in the bright sun- 
shine. Besides this park the property em- 
braces an iron furnace and a paper mill, 
situated further up the stream, and my cousin 
is superintendent of the mill. 

We traverse the wood in the direction of its 
greatest length, and at the end of a stately 
avenue, of beeches, beneath the drooping 
branches, I have a glimpse of a wing of the 
chateau, the colonnade of a peristyle, and a 
row of orange trees in boxes. The sight of 
the lordly mansion, its imposing fagade gilded 
by the morning sun, restores peace to my ruf- 
fled spirit and sends me off dreaming dreams 
once more of splendor and luxurious living. 
Up to the present time I have had no other 
knowledge of chateaux than that derived from 
picture-books or from my imagination ; to have 
this one before my eyes, almost within reach 
of my hand, affords a pleasing titillation to 
my vanity and my passion for the magnificent. 
My only fear is that the dwelling of the De- 
lormes may appear mean beside the ancient 


112 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


abbey and that there may be further disap- 
pointment in store for me in that quarter ; I 
therefore do not venture to question Arsene 
Camus on the subject, but plod along’ silently 
in his footsteps, admiring the slender, stately 
trunks of the beeches whose long, pliant boughs 
droop downward in graceful curves and almost 
sweep the surface of the slumberous stream. 
Now we are at the boundary wall ; we pass 
through a wicket and enter a path that is 
paved with the black slag and cinders of the 
smelting furnace. After following this path 
for a little less than fifteen minutes it brings us 
out on a semicircular space, the circumference 
of which is lined with a row of buildings con- 
nected with the paper mill, and at one of the 
extremities I behold a private house whose 
stoop and veranda are luxuriantly decorated 
with five-leaved ivy. 

“ Here is where your cousin Delorme lives,” 
murmurs Arsene. 

Whether or no Uncle Mouginot has fore- 
warned my cousin of my arrival is more than 
I can say, but just as we are entering the in- 
closure a little girl of about my own age, who 
has been swinging on the gate at the top of the 
steps, jumps down and rushes away into the 
house as if to announce our coming, and two 
minutes later my cousin in person comes forth 
to meet us. He has not changed since the time 
when I saw him last at my uncle’s, on the occa- 
sion of the memorable family conclave ; he is 
the same active, sturdy little man, with the 
same open, intelligent face, the same abrupt 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


113 


way of speaking*, the same stiff, bushy heard 
and hair cut en brosse. He lifts me off my 
feet and embraces me. 

“How are you, youngster? ” is his friendly 
greeting. “ So the Mouginots have consented 
at last to let you come and see your mother’s 
relatives ? Better late than never. How are 
you, Arsene ? Much obliged for your trouble 
in bringing us the boy. You are to stay and 
dine with us, you know. And now, Jacques, 
come along and get acquainted with your 
cousins.” 

He takes me by the hand ; we cross the porch 
and enter a spacious apartment whose floor is 
of black and white tiles and whose wainscot, 
ceiling-high, is adorned with stags’ horns and 
wild boars’ masks, in the center of which is a 
round table surrounded by cane-seated chairs. 
A lady, very active still, notwithstanding she is 
beginning to show signs of embonpoint, a lady 
with bright gray eyes and chestnut hair knotted 
behind her head in a scanty chignon, immedi- 
ately takes me in her arms, scans my face 
closely, and kissing me warmly on both cheeks, 
exclaims : 

“ How like he is to Sophie ! Welcome to our 
house, my dear. You are the living image of 
your poor mother. Zelie, embrace your cousin 
Jacques ! ” 

Zelie is the little girl who was keeping watch 
and ward on the porch. It appears she is my 
junior by two years, but no one would suppose 
so from looking at her sturdy, well-developed 
form. Her bright, intelligent face, like her 


114 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


father’s, shows evidence of energy and deter- 
mination. Her features are rather coarse, the 
jaw being the least bit too square and the 
cheek-bones a shade too prominent, but her 
complexion is dazzlingly white, her limpidly blue 
eyes are full of light, there is a kindly expres- 
sion and a most charming smile on her ruddy 
lips ; her low, wide forehead is shaded by an 
abundant growth of chestnut hair which is 
collected behind and falls down her back in a 
single heavy braid. The kiss she gives me 
comes from the heart and she retains my hand 
in hers. 

“ Go and play in the garden, children, while 
I am setting the table,” says Mme. Delorme. 
“ I will call you when dinner is ready.” 

Zelie drags me impetuously away, and we go 
clattering down the steps into the garden, to 
which the stream forms a boundary at the fur- 
ther extremity. Properly speaking, it is a 
kitchen-garden rather than a flower-garden, but 
the plots of vegetables are all surrounded by 
beds of generous proportions in which all sorts 
of old-fashioned flowers display their bright 
hues and exhale their sweet odors : there are 
sweet- Williams, blue-bells, lark’s-spur, holly- 
hocks, lady’s-slippers, together with many oth- 
ers. At regular intervals are dwarf pear and 
apple trees, loaded down with fruit ; along the 
sunny side of a wall the clusters of golden, 
bursting chasselas, pendent from their support- 
ing trellis, attract the buzzing wasps, while 
odd nooks and corners where nothing else will 
grow are filled with gnarled old trees bending 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


115 


beneath the weight of those purple, egg-shaped 
plums that are known locally as quoiches. The 
place, of which my cousin Zelie proudly exhib- 
its to me all the treasures, is fragrant with the 
odor of ripening fruit and autumnal flowers. 
The little lass, with her frank, friendly man- 
ner, her good nature, her simple dress of calico 
cut to fit loosely to the form, and leaving her 
entire freedom of movement, moves about amid 
her rustic environment as if she were perfectly 
at home in it. The honest fragrance of the old- 
fashioned country flowers, the purity of the run- 
ning water, the wholesome flavor of the ripen- 
ing fruits, all seem to have contributed some- 
thing of their essence to make up this small 
personality. She knows every one of the plants 
by name, can tell me their medicinal or culi- 
nary properties, and explains to me how they 
grow and when is the proper season to set 
them in the ground. The extent and precocity 
of her horticultural acquirements excite in me 
more amazement than enthusiasm. I* have 
lived thus far so entirely in the world of dreams 
and romance that my fair cousin’s lore strikes 
me as too prosaically humdrum, as savoring 
too much of earth. Her words fall from her 
lips so naturally, however, and she speaks with 
such animation and simplicity, that the time 
does not seem long to me, and when we are 
summoned to the midday meal I wonder where 
the hours have gone. 

How abundant and appetizing is the dinner 
in the cheerful dining-room, through whose 
open windows, together with the perfume of 


113 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


the clematis, come the gentle murmur of the 
Saulx as it leaps its dam, and the mellow chime 
of distant hells ! What a difference here from 
the ostentatious parsimony of Aunt Mouginot’s 
festive efforts ! Here everything is plain and 
of the best, and served with unstinted hospi- 
tality : the butter is fresh-churned, the cucum- 
bers, sliced in a shallow vessel of graceful form, 
diffuse throughout the room a refreshing and 
salubrious odor. There is a sucking pig cooked 
in its own jelly, a fish taken from the stream 
that very morning, and to make the menu com- 
plete a huge tart made from those self-same 
purple plums that had made my mouth water 
in the garden. Your portion is not doled out 
to you by weight and measure as at the phar- 
macy ; the pleasure manifest on Mme. De- 
lorme’s face when one sends his plate to be filled 
a second time is evidence enough that she likes 
to see her cheer appreciated, and that puts one 
at his ease, so that when we rise from table we 
are all on terms of perfect amity with one an- 
other. After dinner I am shown the little bed- 
room that is to be mine. There is a bright- 
flowered paper on the wall, the iron bedstead 
is concealed under curtains of snowy whiteness, 
the single window looks out over the trees of 
the park. I forthwith conceive a tender affec- 
tion for it, and Arsene Camus, as he says good- 
by to return to his parents, assures me that 
he will give his personal attention to the for- 
warding of my slender baggage just as soon as 
he gets back to Villotte. 

Ah, the happy days that I spent at Jean- 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


117 


d’heurs among those friendly people, within 
those hospitable walls ! It is only when I 
come to think of them in later days that I ap- 
preciate their delights as they deserve ; at the 
time they glide by so smoothlj 7 , so unevent- 
fully, that I am all unconscious of their peace- 
ful charm. 

My cousin Delorme is busy at his factory all 
day long, his wife has her household cares to 
attend to, so that we children, Zelie and I, are 
at liberty to do pretty much as we please. 
Mme. Delorme is not a suspicious prude, like 
my aunt Mouginot, and is not afraid to leave 
us together. There is nothing strange or un- 
usual in Zelie going about the neighborhood 
unattended, and under her guidance I explore 
the^entire countryside. We chase butterflies 
in the broad avenues of the park, we fish in 
the Saulx — we even extend our excursions as 
far as the borders of the wood of Trois-Fon- 
taines. I tell my cousin the story of my 
trials and tribulations at Pestel’s, my griev- 
ances against Aristide and my admiration for 
little Alice. On this last head my flow of elo- 
quence is inexhaustible, and Zelie listens with 
the patience of an angel, without the slightest 
indication of jealousy, although I expatiate 
even to weariness on the little Parisian’s 
grace, beauty and intelligence. 

“ She must be very pretty ! ” she merely ob- 
serves with a sigh. “ I wish I were like her.” 

Zelie is not at all like little Alice. She has 
not her refined elegance, neither has she her 
queenly manners nor her wealth of imagination. 


118 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


She has received lier education at the sisters’ 
school, and her reading* has been confined to 
the catechism and the Gospel. And yet it is 
but fair to confess that her company is never 
tiresome ; her conversation abounds in interest, 
although it is confined to a limited range of 
practical topics. Sometimes I attempt to en- 
list her interest in my unsubstantial tales, to 
take her by the hand and lead her with me on 
an excursion into the fabulous realms of fairy- 
land, but she cannot follow me for long without 
fatigue, her smooth forehead wrinkles under 
the mental strain, and with an impatient shake 
of the head she exclaims : 

4 * What use is there in bothering our heads 
about things that have no existence ? ” 

f * Yes, but it is good fun to make believe 
those things might come true — ” 

“ It is a great deal better fun to think of 
things which happen for fair and about which 
there is no nonsense : how the grain of wheat 
sprouts, how the chrysalis becomes a butterfly, 
how the blossom is transformed into the 
fruit — ” 

There is no arguing with her when she adopts 
this matter-of-fact line of reasoning. My cousin 
Zelie is the unyielding foe of all deceit and sub- 
terfuge ; she turns a deaf ear to fiction of every 
sort, and in this respect she appears to me far 
inferior to little Alice. But then again, she is 
so frank, so affectionate, so good-naturedly 
companionable that I forgive her her short- 
comings in consideration of the tender admira- 
tion she displays toward me. 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


119 


We chance one morning* to be in a piece of 
woods belonging to the Delormes, in which it 
is the superintendent’s habit to set snares for 
small birds. We have advanced but a little 
way among the underbrush when my ears are 
saluted by the loud squawking of a bird in dis- 
tress. 

“Hurry up,” says Zelie, “ a silly jay has let 
himself get caug’ht in a rtiquette .” 

We start off on a keen run for the spring 
near which the traps are set. Sure enough, 
Zelie had guessed aright : a jay has entered the 
treacherous inclosure, the bolt has flown back, 
releasing the fateful cords, and he is a pris- 
oner; he squalls and struggles so violently 
that the network of stout twine lies flat upon 
the ground. In my eagerness to be first to 
assert possession of the captive I rush forward 
and incautiously lay hands on the big, blue- 
plumaged bird, who revenges himself by peck- 
ing at me so fiercely that the blood spurts from 
my finger. Responsive to the howl of rage and 
pain that I emit as if in emulation of the jay, 
Zelie comes running up, kneels on the ground, 
relieves me of my enemy that she casts aside 
among the grass and weeds, having first piti- 
lessly wrung its neck, then takes my bleeding 
finger, raises it to her lips and sucks the 
wound. 

Under the gentle pressure of her lips it seems 
to me that the pain subsides as if by magic, and 
I am careful not to move, so great is the pleas- 
ure I experience in her novel mode of treatment. 
At last my cousin tears her handkerchief in 


120 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


strips, dips them in the spring* and binds up 
the wound. 

“ There,” she murmurs, “it doesn’t hurt 
now, does it ? ” 

“ Not a bit. Cousin Zelie ; your lips have 
charmed away the pain. But doesen’t the 
sight of blood frighten you ? ” 

She blushes and replies: “They say that 
any one bitten by a bird runs the risk of being 
poisoned, and I thought it best to extract the 
venom from the wound while it was fresh.” 

I am so fiHed with gratitude that I throw my 
arms about her neck and give her a kiss. I 
would cheerfully expose myself to the keen 
beak of a bird of prey if by that means I might 
have further experience of that delicious cure. 
Then we take up the jay, with its gaudy plum- 
age all rumpled and disordered, and set out for 
home, silent and somewhat disturbed in mind. 

And thus to me, living this free and joyous 
life of the woods and fields, with the bright 
September sky above my head, the days fly by 
with frightful rapidity. The first thing I do 
each morning on opening my eyes in the little 
bedroom that overlooks the park is to consult 
my calendar, and I see with terror that the mo- 
ment is drawing very near when I must say 
farewell to my good friends of Jeand’heurs. 
Already the days are perceptibly growing short- 
er, the increasing coolness of the mornings tells 
that the end of summer is at hand. It is not 
the idea of returning to Yillotte that terrifies 
me, so much as the prospect of languishing as a 
captive at Pestel’s ; I feel that I shall never be 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


121 


able to submit resignedly to be immured for 
long, long months behind those prison walls, 
with the schoolmaster’s left-handed blessings 
and stiff doses of arithmetic for my sole con- 
solation. This forbidding outlook embitters my 
last days of liberty. I become nervous and dis- 
traught, like a bird that beholds a hawk cir- 
cling high in air and takes fright before it is 
in danger. The Delormes, who are as kind to 
me as can be, notice my trouble, and the clear- 
sighted superintendent seems to have divined 
its cause. 

We are seated in the stone-floored porch one 
evening — he, Zelie and I — chatting on one subject 
and another while waiting for supper to be an- 
nounced, when my cousin, having watched me 
in silence for a while, abruptly speaks : 

“You are not as cheerful as usual, Jacques; 
what’s the matter, do you find it tiresome 
here ? ” 

“Not a bit of it, cousin — quite the reverse ! ” 

“ Then it is the idea of going back to school 
that is worrying you ? ” 

I nod my head without replying further. 

“I admit,” he continues, “that it is not very 
pleasant for one of your age to be shut up be- 
hind brick walls. The open air would be a great 
deal better for you. I proposed once to your 
uncle Mouginot that he should let me bring 
you to Jeand’heurs and put you into the paper 
mill to learn the business. But it seems the 
Mouginots want to make a scholar and a fine 
gentleman of you. If that is also your way of 
thinking there is nothing further to be said.” 


122 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


While he is speaking I direct a furtive glance 
at Zelie’s face and catch her calm, clear eyes 
bent on mine with an expression of anxiety, as 
if there were an answer that she desired above 
all things to hear me make, and she were wait- 
ing for it. 

I know that at a single word spoken by me 
Cousin Delorme would renew his offer and do 
his best to obtain the Mouginots’ consent to 
my taking up my abode at Jeand’heurs for 
good. And yet I cannot bring myself to speak 
that word. Acting as usual under the impulse 
of my vanity and infatuated with my ambitious 
dreams, I decide that the little hamlet of Jean- 
d’heurs is too small and mean a theater for a 
person of my abilities. I put firmer trust tk 
ever in the glittering prospects evoked by the 
persuasive eloquence of Uncle Scipio, and I 
reflect, moreover, that should I connect my- 
self permanently with the factory I would be 
forever parted from the adorable little Alice. 

“Well, Jacques,” M. Delorme urges, “speak 
up and tell us what you yourself would like to 
be!” 

“I, Cousin Delorme ? Why — I would like — 
I think I would like to go to Paris and make 
my fortune ! ” 

My cousin shrugs his shoulders and says no 
more. At that instant I hear a deep sigh escape 
the lips of some one close beside me. I turn my 
head, and it seems to me that somehow Zelie’s 
blue eyes have suddenly become bright and 
humid, as if the dews of evening had deposited 
some of their moisture there. 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


123 


CHAPTER VIII. 

The nearer the time approaches for the re- 
opening- of school the greater becomes my an- 
tipatl^ to subjecting myself again to the 
clutches of the vulturine Pestel. On the 30th 
of September Cousin Delorme receives a curt 
note from Uncle Victor, which he reads to me 
after supper. The pharmacist informs us that 
the school will open its doors on Monday, Oc- 
tober 3, but that the boarding pupils will be 
allowed to take up their quarters there on the 
day preceding this date. He therefore in- 
structs me to start for home with bag and 
baggage in time to reach Uiere during the 
forenoon of Sunday. 

Having made n^self acquainted with the 
subject matter of this missive I pensively seek 
the seclusion of my chamber, where, resting 
my elbows on the window-sill, I watch the 
rising moon as she shows her silvery disk over 
the trees of the park. Already she is almost a 
perfect circle, and I mournfully assure myself 
that by the time she is at the full I shall be 
languishing a captive in PestePs jail. The 
night is very still, and in the nocturnal calm 
distant sounds are plainly audible. Far, very 
far away in the west, over toward the wood 
of Trois - Fontaines, I hear a dull rumbling, 
succeeded by an ear-piercing whistle. It is the 
train for Paris, slowing down to make its stop 
at Sermaize station. It starts again, and I 
listen sadly to the receding roar as it flies 


124 MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 

away through the darkness of the night to- 
ward the great city, where it will arrive by 
to-morrow’s early dawn and where dwell Uncle 
Scipio and little Alice. I cannot help envying 
the fortunate travelers who are being whirled 
away by the mighty magician, steam, when all 
at once a most audacious reflection flashes 
across my mind : “What is there to prevent 
me from being one of those fortunate beings ? 
All I should have to do would be to get away 
from here by daybreak, so as to reach Sermaize 
in time to catch the morning train. I am* a 
good walker, and if I should take a short-cut 
through the wood of Trois -Fontaines I could 
easily cover the distance to the station in four 
hours. A third-class ticket from Sermaize to 
Paris won’t cost me more than twelve or thir- 
teen francs, and the louis d’or that kind Grand- 
ma Pechoin gave me is still in my pocketbook, 
unbroken. I would land in the capital at 
five o’clock in the afternoon and run straight 
to Uncle Scipio’s. I am sure he would be glad 
to see — did he not tell me, twice over, to come 
to him if they ill-treated me? Now, there 
can’t be the least question about it, I am ill- 
treated. Their plan to shut me up as a 
boarder at old Pestel’s is a wicked action and 
a confounded shame, so that I have a perfect 
right to leave the Mouginot-Pechoins, who are 
hateful tyrants, without beat of drum, and 
seek assistance and protection from Uncle 
Scipio.” 

I turn this fine project over in my mind dur- 
ing a great portion of the night, and the next 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


125 


day, while Zelie and I are walking’ by the 
Saulx, I devote even more serious attention to 
it. My only scruple in the matter is that I 
shall have to leave the Delormes surrepti- 
tiously, without telling them of my plans and 
thanking them for their cordial hospitality. 
But it is quite plain that it won’t do to con- 
fide my project to the cousin ; I know what his 
ideas of discipline are, and, for all the kindness 
he has shown me, he would infallibly take steps 
to bring my scheme to naught. Still, the no- 
tion of giving- leg-bail, as if I were no better 
than a common ^malefactor, is extremely irk- 
some to me, and finally I light on a compro- 
mise which seems to me as if it ought to silence 
the reproaches of my conscience. 

Zelie has noticed my preoccupation, and as 
we are sauntering slowly homeward in the de- 
clining daylight she questions me with sisterly 
solicitude : 

“ What ails you, Jacques ? Why don’t you 
speak to me ? ” 

The twilight hour is propitious to confidences ; 
under its influence I muster up courage to speak 
and relieve myself of my scruples. 

“ Zelie,” I blurt out, abruptly, “I am going 
to trust you with a secret, but first give me 
your solemn word that you won’t tell it to a 
living soul.” 

“ To no one ? — not even papa and mamma ? ” 

“Not even to your parents.” 

She comes to a halt, and opening her limpid 
eyes to their full extent, fixes them inquiringly 
upon my face : 


126 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


“ Is it anything- had ? ” 

I hesitate for a second, then answer in an off- 
hand air : 

“ No, no, it is nothing had. Will you prom- 
ise not to tell ? ” 

“ I promise.” 

And half in joke, half in earnest, she repeats 
the childish invocation with which the bo3 7 s and 
girls of our neighborhood have* been accus- 
tomed to attest their oaths from time imme- 
morial : 

“ Boule de feu, boule de fer, 

Si je meus j’irai en enfer.” 

* 4 There, are you satisfied? Now let’s hear 
your secret.” 

“ Zelie, I have made up m3 7 mind never to go 
back to Villotte again.” 

My cousin’s blue eyes beam with delight. 

“ Really and truly,” she exclaims ; “ you will 
stay here with us ? ” 

“ No — not precise^. I mean to go to Paris.” 

And in a few brief words I unfold to her my 
plan for decamping the next morning without 
sound of trumpet or drum, taking the train at 
Sermaize and going in quest of my uncle Scipio. 
The bright, blue eyes are clouded now, an Ze- 
lie’s smooth brow is puckered with regretful 
creases. 

“ You will be grieving papa and mamma,” 
she gravely answers, “ and besides that, M. 
Mouginot-Pechoin will sa3 7 that we did not 
look after you as we should have done. Oh, 
Jacques, don’t do it ; I beg you, don’t ! ” 

“ I must, Zelie ; J have not the courage to go 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


127 


back and face Pestel. Besides, Uncle Scipio 
told me that I was to be sure to come and hunt 
him up if they ill-used me — and, to speak 
frankly, the people at the pharmacy make life 
a burden to me. I feel that I must go. Re- 
member your promise to keep my secret ! ” 

“ Yes, but I am sorry that I promised.” 

“ Be silent, for my sake. Say nothing*, at 
least until to-morrow afternoon. By that time 
I shall be safe and sound in Uncle Scipio’s 
house, and you can tell your parents all. Say 
to them how it grieves me to cause them 
trouble and how grateful I am for all their 
kindness. And you, too, cousin, I thank you 
for your friendship. I shall never forget the 
happy days I have spent at Jeanci’lieurs.” 

The tears are brimming in Zelie’s eyes, just 
ready to overflow; with a sudden impulse I 
throw my arms about her neck and give her a 
long, tight hug. Our return to the paper mill 
is made in silence, and all during supper both 
our hearts are so heavy that we find it impos- 
sible to speak. At dessert M. Delorme pro- 
duces a bottle of sweet wine and fills the small 
glasses round. 

“Jacques, my boy,” says he, “to-morrow 
winds up your holiday. You know the way to 
Jeand’heurs now, and I hope we shall see you 
here again. To-night the toast is : To your 
good health, and the pleasure of another visit 
from you.” 

I am conscious of a great sob rising in my 
throat, and in order to preserve a steady face 
make baste to touch glasses with my neighbors 


128 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


and toss off my wine. I despise myself for my 
baseness in deceiving- my good cousins, and 
allege a headache as a pretext for hurrying off 
to my room. Zelie lights me to the staircase, 
and as I am about to close my door I signal 
her a last adieu, placing a finger on my lips as 
a warning to her to be silent. 

Once in my little room, which is flooded with 
silvery moonlight, I proceed to stow my pock- 
ets with the various articles that I intend to 
carry with me : comb, soap, toothbrush, my 
knife and a ball of twine. I make sure that my 
twenty-franc piece, my sole fortune, is safe in 
its dwelling-place, my waistcoat pocket, then 
remove my shoes, and throw myself, with all 
my clothes on, upon the bed, so as to be ready 
to cut and run with the first glimpse of day- 
light. I know that Cousin Delorme’s hour for 
rising is six o’clock sharp, and it is my wish to 
be well on my way by the time he is afoot. I 
drop off into a fitful, feverish slumber, and 
sleep only with one eye. The thought of the 
task I have assigned myself occupies my mind 
and serves as an alarm to rouse me. When I 
awake the stars are beginning to grow pale and 
a cock is crowing from a distant barnyard. 
Holding my shoes in one hand, I cautiously 
open my chamber door and descend the stairs, 
which give forth no sound under my catlike 
tread. Now I am in the corridor, but I per- 
ceive that the outer door is locked and bolted, 
and I remember that the massive key works 
stiffly in the lock and emits a most unearthly 
screech when turned. I feel certain that the 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


129 


tell-tale sound will arouse my cousin, and stand 
gazing* in discomfiture at the stout bolted 
door. The kitchen communicates with the 
garden, fortunately, and by that way I can 
gain the fields. Noiselessly I steal on tiptoe 
into the last-named room ; the garden door is 
only fastened with a hook and staple, and a sin- 
gle leap lands me in the path, where at last I 
can venture to put on my shoes. Once in the 
fields, over which the darkness is brooding still, 
I run as fast as my legs will carry me, follow- 
ing the course of the stream, in haste to put as 
wide a distance as possible between the paper 
mill and me. 

I have gained my liberty ! but not yet am I 
relieved from all anxiety. In my headlong 
haste I have taken the first path I came to, 
never stopping to think that this course would 
entail the necessity of going on to the next vil- 
lage before I could meet with a bridge to enable 
me to cross the Saulx. I determine to retrace 
my steps and make a detour around the park 
Avail, which will bring me out close to Robert- 
Espagne, a hamlet adjoining the wood of Trois- 
Fontaines. My heart quakes within me as I 
repass the paper mill and the Delorme’s cot- 
tage ; I climb the hill, and swift as an arroAv fly 
down the slope on the other side. Not until I 
behold the smoke from the chimneys of Robert- 
Espagne rising above the autumnal mists do I 
pause for breath. 

The village is already up and stirring, but 
as no one knows me there I push on boldly. 
Although I am horribly afraid of losing my 


130 MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 

way I do not dare to apply to those whom I 
meet for directions, and my anxiety is not 
allayed until, coming' to the edge of the forest, 
I encounter a guidepost bearing this legend : 
“Parish Road from Tremont to Sermaize.” 

The road, which has been repaved recently, 
ascends the acclivity of a wooded hill, at top 
of which it stretches away in a straight line 
over a level plateau, between trees which the 
early frosts have already begun to dye with 
ruddy hues. A pale sun shines out from among 
the vaporous clouds, touching their edges with 
tints of silver, and in the distance I hear the 
deep tones of a church bell striking the hour. 
Seven o’clock ! As the train is not due until 
eleven and the station is distant but a trifle 
over six miles, there is no need for me to hurry, 
but there is a sort of low fever on me that will 
not let me stop to rest or beguile my eyes with 
the beauties of the landscape. There seems to 
be a voice within me that keeps calling : “ On ! 
on ! ” just like the Wandering Jew. And yet 
it is well worth my attention, this pretty wood- 
land road, bordered on each side by a great 
forest where the thrushes are calling to one 
another from the branches of the mountain 
ashes. But this morning the forest has no 
charms for me ; my ears are closed to the 
piping of the thrushes, I have no eyes for the 
mountain ashes with their gay clusters of scar- 
let berries ; my every thought is concentrated 
on the station at Sermaize, on whose red roof 
alongside the railway tracks I long to set my 
eyes. 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


131 


The wooded plateau begins to fall away to- 
ward the west. The intervals between the 
trees gradually become wider, and soon my 
vision is gladdened by the sight of the town, 
perched on the hillside and displaying its long 
rows of houses built of wood and plaster ; then 
I have glimpses of the Saulx winding among 
the meadows in snakelike curves, and finally 
the station, in its cramped position between the 
canal and river, heaves in sight. 

As I pass through Sermaize the sight of a 
baker’s shop and the alluring ddor of hot 
bread remind me that I have had no break- 
fast. I could eat something with great satis- 
faction, but to buy a penny roll would have to 
change my gold piece, and I fear the baker 
might suspect me of having stolen it. I put 
a bridle on my appetite and decided to wait 
until I have small change. 

And now I am at the station, where an 
electric bell is clanging away intermittently, 
keeping up a most tremendous pother. I have 
still an hour to wait, and selecting the darkest 
corner of the waiting-room, proceed to ensconce 
myself there. And now fresh terrors assail 
me. Suppose my uncle Mouginot-Tupin, who 
owns a farm in the vicinity, should suddenly 
pop up before me? or Lawyer Jacobi, who 
sometimes strolls over to drink a glass of 
water from the Chalybeate spring at Ser- 
maize ? I cannot help thinking that the fresh 
arrivals scrutinize me too inquisitively as 
they come in, and the employees, too, seem 
to cast suspicious looks at me. I try to make 


132 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


myself smaller even than I am. I pull my 
straw hat down over my eyes to conceal my 
features from the prying* g*aze of the curious, 
and the hands of the clock appear to move 
with heart-breaking* slowness. A bell ring's ; 
the train is signaled. The g*ate flies open ; I 
pass through hurriedly, and timidly depositing 
my louis on the brass-covered ledge of the 
ticket-seller’s window, call in a husky voice for 
a third-class ticket for Paris. The girl fingers 
my coin, throws it down upon the counter to 
test its ring, and my heart beats like a trip- 
hammer under her piercing gaze. She delib- 
erately hands me the ticket and my change, 
which I thrust hastily into my pocket without 
stopping to count it. I steal into the waiting- 
room, where two or three people from the vil- 
lage are occupying seats, and feel my distress 
and alarm increasing momentarily as I look 
from the window on the stir and bustle of the 
porters wheeling the passengers’ luggage down 
the platform. A distant trembling motion that 
seems to proceed from the bowels of the earth 
now begins to be perceptible, then the air is 
rent by the shrill scream of the locomotive, and 
a moment later the train comes rushing and 
hurtling into the station with a noise like thun- 
der, causing the ground to quake and the win- 
dows to shake and rattle. The doors are thrown 
open, and I make for a third-class compartment, 
into which some one shoves me in a state of 
complete bewilderment. The trainmen run along 
the platform and close the car doors with a bang, 
the whistle blows, and the train is off again. 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


133 


Behold me at last in safety and en route for 
Paris ! The compartment is almost full, hut I 
am still in a semi-dazed condition and scarcely 
hestow a look on my fellow-travelers. I tuck 
my precious ticket safely away in my waistcoat 
pocket, then count my change to see how much 
money I have left. The chink of the silver 
coins attracts the attention of my neighbor, 
who has been looking from the window ; he 
turns his head, looks me hard in the face, and 
in that brief moment I recognize my quondam 
schoolfellow, Lechaudel, alias Guigne-a-Gouche. 

“ Why, it’s Jacques ! ” exclaims the carpen- 
ter’s son ; “ here’s ago ! ” 

My face reddens at his salutation, and my 
first impression is one of distrust. I am un- 
certain whether I have any reason to congratu- 
late myself on the encounter, and I have my 
doubts whether Guigne-a-Gouche will respect 
my secret and not betray me. It is with con- 
siderable anxiety, therefore, that I ask him 
how far he is going. I have lost track of him 
since he left Pestel’s school, and before renew- 
ing acquaintance am disposed to learn a little 
something of his proceedings in the interim. 

“ Where am I going?” he replied with a 
bumptious air ; “ why, to Paris, of course ! My 
father has apprenticed me to a furniture manu- 
facturer. I leave Villotte without regret, and 
you won’t see me back there for one while, I 
can promise you ! ” 

This intelligence reassures me, and when he 
takes his turn at questioning me I tell him 
without hesitation that I am going on a visit to 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


134 . 

my uncle Scipio Mouginot. “ I suppose you 
have heard of him ? ” I proudly add. 

No, Guigne-a-Gouche is entirely ignorant of 
Scipio Mouginot’s existence ; but as if to atone 
for his ignorance in this direction, he professes 
an intimate acquaintance with Paris, which he 
has visited once on a cheap excursion train. He 
seems to take pleasure in arousing my wonder 
by his lurid descriptions, of the surprising 
things he has seen in the great city: the Palais- 
Royal, the Vendome column, a cafe-concert in 
the Champs-Elysees. He also obliges me with 
the names of the principal towns through 
which the train passes. He possesses a great 
fund of knowledge, does Guigne-a-Gouche ; his 
loquacity and “cheek” hypnotize me in a 
measure, and with him at my side I cannot 
complain of the tedium of the journe3L The 
stations flit by in swift succession. We reach 
one where Ave run in under a lofty glazed dome ; 
there are locomotives crossing and recrossing 
one another in every direction, and I hear a 
man sing out : “ Epernay, twenty minutes for 
refreshments ! ” I do not quite understand at 
first, but my comrade kindly explains that a 
stop is made at Epernay to give the passengers 
a chance to eat a morsel “ off their thumb- 
nails.” 

“Aren’t you hungry, Jacques? ” he asks in 
a wheedling voice. 

Am I hungry? My stomach is empty and 
clamoring to be filled ; of course my answer is 
in the affirmative. 

“In that case,” he continues, “let’s get 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


135 


down and go to the refreshment-room. Til 
stand treat.” 

I follow my generous companion, and pres- 
ently we are in a large, handsome room, its 
walls adorned with immense plate-glass mir- 
rors, with rows of little marble-topped tables 
covering the floor, and a long counter running 
down one side on which are arranged dishes of 
cold meat, baskets of fruit, plates of cakes, and 
good things of every sort in profusion. Lechau- 
del, as bold as brass, hails a waiter and orders 
bread, ham and grapes. The travelers are 
crowded thickly about the small tables, eating 
and drinking as if their lives depended on it. 
Now and then is heard the sound of a popping 
cork and the gurgle of an emptying bottle. 

“ Do you like champagne ? ” quoth Lechau- 
del with his mouth full of bread and meat. 

Champagne ! I have tasted it but twice, and 
then my aunt Mouginot was careful to see that 
the glass intended for me had a liberal allow- 
ance of water in it, but I retain a very friendly 
remembrance of the tempting, golden, spark- 
ling wine. I give an affirmative nod of the 
head ; two tall, tapering, creaming glasses are 
set before us, in which we dip our noses with 
great satisfaction as we finish our ham and 
grapes. But the best of things must have an 
end. A porter comes to the door of the buffet 
and shouts : “ Passengers for Paris all aboard !” 
and at the same time a waiter plants himself 
in front of our table and laconically remarks : 

ic It is six francs ! ” 

Guigne-a-Gouche nervously puts his hands in 


136 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


his trousers pockets in apparent search for 
something- there, then goes through the same 
performance with the pockets of his waistcoat, 
and all at once his countenance assumes an ex- 
pression of pained consternation. 

“ Sacristi ! 99 he murmurs, “ I can’t find my 
pocketbook. I must have left it in my valise. 
Have you any money about you, Jacques ? ” 

The waiter fidgets impatiently and eyes us 
suspiciously, the passengers are streaming from 
the room, and the bell rings out its final warn- 
ing. I am frightened, and extracting from my 
waistcoat pocket my small remaining store, 
throw down six francs upon the -marble of the 
table, and then we scuttle back to our compart- 
ment. 

“ Much .obliged ! ” says the wily Guigne-a- 
Gouche as he resumes his seat in the corner. 
“We had a good breakfast, anyway! Next 
time it will be my turn to pay.” 

There is no further mention of the pocketbook, 
and I recognize the fact that I may as well 
charge up the cost of our breakfast to account 
of profit and loss. It begins to dawn on me 
that my ex-schoolmate has been too smart for 
me, and that Guigne-a-Gouche’s methods for 
easing other people of their superfluous cash 
are very much the same as they were in the old 
Pestel days. The conviction that I have been 
made a dupe of, in connection with the prospect 
of landing in Paris with only thirty sous to my 
name, operates to put a very decided damper 
on my enthusiasm ; my admiration for my 
resourceful companion has evaporated with the 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


137 


fumes of the champagne ; I sink into a reverie 
and suffer his coarse pleasantries to pass unan- 
swered. The villages flash by, appearing and 
vanishing in the enframement of the car win- 
dow as if borne on the wings of the whirlwind ; 
some one sings out their names, one after an- 
other : ‘ f Chateau-Thierry, La Ferte-sous-Jou- 
arre, Meaux ; ” then the face of the landscape 
undergoes a decided change and we go dashing 
onward through parks and gardens and past 
trim white villas. The train makes no stops 
now ; it buzzes past the stations amid clouds 
of dust and steam ; then the engine begins to 
shriek more loudly and at more frequent inter- 
vals, there are high turfed embankments on 
each side of the road with revetments of stone, 
and I make out Lechaudel’s voice saying : 

“ Here are the fortifications — w r e are at 
Paris ! ” 

My heart heats violently and I am seized by 
a mysterious, undefined terror. A thought 
that had not occurred to me previously rises 
to my mind and completes my agitation : 

“If Uncle Scipio should chance to be from 
home, what would become of me, a stranger in 
this great city, with thirty sous as my sole 
resource ? ” 

I turn to Lechaudel and ask : 

“ You know all the streets of Paris ; can you 
direct me to the Faubourg Saint-Martin ? ” 

Guigne-a-Gouche, who is engaged in extract- 
ing from beneath the seat the famous valise in 
which he keeps his pocketbook, favors me with 
a very indefinite reply, and I suspect he is not 


138 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


much better posted than myself in regard to 
the topography* of the capital. The train 
crawls onward at diminished speed and comes 
to a halt under the great glazed roof of the 
station ; every one alights, and Lechaudel, first 
negligently wishing me good luck, slouches 
away and is lost among the crowd. Yielding 
to a pressure that I cannot stem I move for- 
ward and presently emerge, in company with 
my fellow-passengers, upon a long courtyard 
thronged with cabs, omnibuses and bustling, 
hurrying people. It behooves me to take steps 
to find where my uncle lives. Greatly agi- 
tated, I address myself to the man nearest me : 

“Can you tell me, please, where is No. 118 
Faubourg Saint-Martin ? ” 

“ Turn the corner to the left ; the faubourg 
will be right before you.” 

“ I wish to go to M. Scipio Mouginot’s — 
the inventor of the new process for making 
cloth — ” 

The gentleman makes no reply and hastens 
away toward a carriage. I remain standing 
in my tracks with mouth agape, deafened and 
dazed by the shouts of the porters, the crack- 
ing of whips, and the roar and rattle of 
vehicles. 

A drawling, rancorous voice sounds close at 
my ear: “Y r ou want to go to 118 Faubourg 
Martin ? ” 

I turn and behold a tallow-faced youth of 
eighteen or so, clad in a long blue blouse ancL 
wearing a cap on his head. 

“ Y r es — is it far from here ? ” 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


139 


“ A goodish bit. Come along, I’ll show you 
where it is.” 

I follow this obliging young man, who is 
chewing the butt of a half-smoked cigar and 
from moment to moment squirts copious 
streams of saliva against the walls. He 
takes me through a labyrinth of dark, narrow 
streets, where the pavements are covered with 
a glutinous layer of mud, and where I run up 
against men who have the air of being over- 
whelmed with business. The course seems 
longer and more intricate than I had sup- 
posed, and I have a notion that my guide is 
protracting it for some malicious purpose of his 
own. 

“Have we much further to go? Do you 
know M. Scipio Mouginot ? ” 

The young man of the blouse looks at me 
with a contemptuous expression of pity, then, 
pursing his lips to eject a fresh and most por- 
tentous jet of saliva : 

“ What does he do for a living ? ” 

“ He has invented a new sanitary cloth for 
the army. He’s my uncle.” 

“ Can’t say as I know him. See, there’s the 
faubourg, and your uncle’s roosting-place can’t 
be far away.” 

We have debouched into a broad thoroughfare 
where the noise of the drays and omnibuses is 
deafening. Twenty paces further my guide 
stops. “ Here’s Ho. 118.” 

I look up and behold a tall, dirty-yellow 
structure with a wide, arched entrance opening 
into two inner courts ; on the ground floor, to 


140 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


right and left of the entrance-way, are shops of 
not particularly inviting appearance. Each 
floor has its own separate signboard, extend- 
ing across the entire width of the fagade. It 
is not the least bit like the idea I had formed of 
Uncle Scipio’s princely mansion. I turn, in a 
somewhat discomfited frame of mind, to my 
self-sacrificing friend, and overwhelm him with 
thanks. 

“That’s all very fine as far as it goes,” the 
obliging young man impudently replies, “but 
there’s my time and trouble. One franc.” 

My face is scarlet and I feel like a detected 
sneak-thief as I put my hand in my pocket and 
extract from it my last twenty-sou piece ; I 
deliver it to the young man of the blouse, who, 
to show his contempt for such trifling matters, 
tosses it in the air, and catches it as it comes 
down, then goes off whistling. 

Sadder and wiser than I was, I pass in under 
the archway, on one side of which I notice a 
small window surmounted by the inscription : 
“ Address your inquiries to the concierge.” I 
take off my hat politely and request to be 
directed to M. Scipio Mouginot’s residence. 

“ Second court, right-hand staircase, entre- 
sol ! ” 

In order to fix them in my mind I keep re- 
peating mentally these instructions, which are 
thrown at me as one throws a bone to a dog; I 
cross the first court, down the middle of which 
runs a filthy, malodorous gutter that serves to 
carry off the waste water from the sinks of the 
numerous tenants. My consternation is greater 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


141 


even than it was when I emerged from the sta- 
tion, and I ask myself how, in the name of all 
that is decent and respectable, Uncle Scipio can 
live in the midst of this population of laborers. 

Here is the right-hand staircase in the sec- 
ond court at last — a wooden staircase with 
grimy, muddy steps, leading upward to a land- 
ing on which are piled bales on bales of hemp 
that emit an acrid, pungent odor. A door con- 
fronts me bearing the legend : ‘ ‘ Hemp and 
Vosges linens. Entrance to warerooms. Turn 
the knob, s. v. p.” 

I turn the knob. The picture that presents 
itself to my vision is a great room illuminated 
by the dull, uncheerful light from the court, a 
long counter on which are piled rolls of linen, 
and behind this counter a lady of some forty 
years, whose hair is beginning to be tinged 
with gTay, whose face is sad and sweet, en- 
gaged in measuring off a remnant. In a voice 
faltering from disappointment and anxiety I 
ask once more : 

“ M. Scipio Mouginot ? ” 

“M. Mouginot is out, but he will be back 
presently. Will you wait for him ? ” 

“ Oh ! — Why, if it isn’t Jacques ! ” exclaims 
a little girl, whose inquisitive, pretty face sud- 
denly pops out from behind a desk, where, 
perched on a tall stool, she has been busy writ- 
ing. 

I give a great start, and my anxious face is 
illuminated by a smile, for in the little girl with 
the long apron of black lutestring I have rec- 
ognized little Alice 


142 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO, 


CHAPTER IX. 

Little Alice descends from her lofty perch. 
She is taller than when I saw her last ; her 
slight form is slenderer still and still more 
graceful ; her wavy hair falls as of yore in bil- 
lowy masses about her pale face, in which the 
coal-back eyes shine with the brilliancy of dia- 
monds. She has lost nothing of her old queenly 
manner; it is with a gesture almost royal in its 
grace that she gives me her hand and conducts 
me to her mother, the lady of the counter. The 
latter receives me affably, casts on me a kindly, 
rather mournful look, and questions me with 
polite reserve, having first asked me to be 
seated. 

There is a momentary pause in the conver- 
sation, during which I cast a discontented look 
about the wareroom, with its rows of shelves, 
the rolls of linen, the counter and the racks 
filled with great, leather-bound account-books. 
I am still hopeful that this shop is but an off- 
shoot from the main factory where the army 
cloth is made; but I have my fears. Were it 
not for little Alice’s presence I should be wo- 
fully out of countenance here in this salesroom 
for Vosges linen, in company with this strange 
lad}^ with the melancholy face. 

“ You intend to remain in Paris a few days? ” 
Alice’s mother inquires. 

“ No, madame, I came here to stay for good.” 

“ What, so young ! Are not your folks afraid 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


143 


to send a boy of your age to shift for himself 
in the streets of Paris ? ” 

“ I shall not be unfriended, madame, having 
my uncle Scipio to counsel me.” 

“Of course — of course/’ the lady rejoins, 
with a nod of the head. “Have you a place in 
view ? ” 

“ I am expecting — that is, I hope my uncle 
will secure me one.” 

The conversation flags again. The gray- 
haired lady sighs and little Alice stares at me 
with wondering eyes, in which I think I can 
detect a gleam of compassionate irony. To 
break the awkward silence, and also to let the 
ladies know that I am not a little provincial 
numbskull, ignorant of everything, I start the 
conversation again on the topic of Scipio Mou- 
ginot’s enterprises : 

“ Is my uncle as well pleased as ever with his 
prospects ? I suppose the manufacture of the 
army cloth is going on at full blast by this 
time ? 99 

Little Alice bites her lips and darts a look of 
vexation at me ; her mother shakes her head 
and her sad face is overspread with an expres- 
sion of profound melancholy. 

“ Your uncle has had a great deal to contend 
with for some time past,” she replies. “Ill- 
disposed people have played him a scurvy trick 
and caused him to suffer deeply. Unless he 
mentions the subject of his own accord, there- 
fore, you will please have the kindness not to 
speak of the military cloth in his presence.” 

If some one had planted a stinging blow right 


144 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


in the pit of my stomach it could not have taken 
away my breath more effectually than does this 
answer. It upsets me so completely that my 
voice fails me. My mouth is dry, my eyes be- 
come dim and I can feel my features contract- 
ing-. There is a ringing- in my ears ; I seem to 
hear the crash of my gorgeous castles in the 
air as they tumble in ruins about me. I behold 
myself compulsorily returning to Villotte, my 
expedition a pitiable failure, and the tears are 
ready to burst from my eyes. 

At that very moment there is a sound of 
footsteps on the stairs, accompanied by a gay 
tune hummed in a cheerful voice; the door is 
thrown open, and Scipio Mouginot walks briskly 
into the room. 

My uncle has not. changed : he preserves his 
youthful mien and carries his head as high as 
ever ; he has under his arm the inevitable port- 
folio stuffed with papers, has on his back the 
usual fawn-colored spring overcoat. But the 
leather cover of the portfolio is chafed and 
white in spots, as if it were suffering from an 
attack of the mange ; the spring overcoat is 
not as immaculate as it has been once, and its 
skirts fall in lamentable folds and creases about 
its owner’s legs. My relative casts a swift look 
about him that embraces the whole shop, per- 
ceives me sitting disconsolate upon my chair, 
lets slip an ejaculation, lays aside his portfolio 
and comes toward me with extended arms. 

“ You here, Jacques ? What a pleasant sur- 
prise ! ” 

Of my uncle’s surorise there is no room for . 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


145 


doubt ; whether the surprise is pleasant or not 
I would not be so certain. When he has em- 
braced me he falls back a step or two, looks in- 
terrogatively at Alice’s mother, and his face 
seems more ex’pressive of embarrassment than 
delight. 

“ How is it that you chance to be in Paris ? ” 
he asks, with a grave inflection in his voice. 

“ Uncle, I could not remain longer at Vil- 
lotte ; I was too wretched there. I ran away, 
and, as you told me I was to do, am come to put 
myself under 3 7 our protection.” 

I deliver my little speech as rapidly and as 
forcefully as I can for the emotion I am labor- 
ing under ; at the same time I rivet my eyes 
anxiousty on Scipio Mouginot, who listens to 
me reflectively, puckering his lips meanwhile in 
a brown study over the problem presented to 
him so abruptly. 

“ Hum ! hum ! ” he murmurs ; “ so you have 
cut loose from my brother Victor, have you ? 
Perhaps you have acted a little impulsively — 
not that I am going to refuse a t ou shelter ; I 
never go back on my word. But you have 
dropped in on us at an inopportune moment, 
confound it ! — a moment of transition, to tell 
the truth, and of laborious transition, at that.” 

“ Uncle, I should be very sorry to be a bur- 
den ; on the contrary, nothing would please me 
better than to be of service to you.” And I 
add timidly, and I fear a little disingenuously : 
“ Suppose you try me by giving me a situation 
— in your offices ! ” 

Scipio’s lips are puckered as tightly as ever; 


146 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


he strokes his chin and wag's his head doubt- 
fully : 

“ In my offices, you say ? For the time being 
the force is reduced to those who are absolutely 
indispensable. To be quite frank with you, my 
dear boy, the cloth business did not pan out as 
it promised to do. No— the idea was a happy 
one, but it had the ill-will of a red-tape adminis- 
tration to contend against, and failed. The 
ministry deceived us, the ministry cheated us 
shamefulty — patriotism has ceased to exist in 
France ! — so I have had to shift my musket to 
the other shoulder and mark time in my tracks 
for a while. But there is no reason for despair, 
the Lord be praised, thanks to the energy of 
that lady whom you see behind the counter 
there and to whom I must present you — Mme. 
Clemence, widow of my old partner Saintot, a 
brave woman who has sustained me in my 
struggles with an affection and a forgetfulness 
of self that are more than human — ” 

“Monsieur Mouginot ! ” Mme. Saintot blush- 
ingly interrupts in a tone of entreaty. 

“No, no, my dear madame,” my uncle goes 
on, insistently, “you must let me tell this child 
the facts as they are. In Mme. Saintot, Jacques, 
you behold an angelic creature, a woman of 
head and heart, who has suffered from our 
common misfortunes almost as much as I my- 
self have suffered, but has risen triumphant 
above them all and is now strengthening my 
hands while waiting to strike another vein.” 

While Scipio Mouginot discourses thus a faint 
smile plays over the sad face of Alice’s mother ; 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


14 ? 


her fine brown eyes, in which affection and sub- 
missiveness are as plainly legible as in those of 
a faithful dog, become humid and are turned on 
my uncle with gleams of grateful admira- 
tion. 

“Now, ladies,” continues Scipio, extending 
his arms toward Mme. Clemence and her daugh- 
ter, “ this is the important question which pre- 
sents itself to us. Jacques, here, invoking the 
faith of promises made and soliciting* my pro- 
tection, has come and thrown himself into my 
arms. Am I to send him away, or should I, 
notwithstanding the difficulties of the present 
moment — a moment of transition, but toilsome, 
laborious transition — should I, I say, keep my 
brother’s son at my side and afford him my 
assistance in hewing his way to fortune ? ” 

Mme. Clemence looks down on me with pity- 
ing eyes. 

“ Whatever you do will be w’ell done, Mon- 
sieur Mouginot,” she replies in her low, sweet 
voice. 

“Of course we ought to keep him!” ex- 
claimed Alice, in her decided, imperious little 
way. 

“ Truth from the mouth of babes ! ” remarks 
my uncle, approvingly. “That settles it; 
Jacques is to remain. What is enough, for 
three will suffice for four. To-morrow, my boy, 
I will write to my brother Victor, but to-day 
shall be devoted to rojoicing. Mme. Clemence, 
we must kill the fatted calf and have a little 
better dinner than usual to celebrate the arrival 
of our dear Jacques. Will you be so kind as to 


148 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


attend to the domestic and culinary arrange- 
ments ? ” 

Mme. Clemence silentty inclines her head, 
passes into the adjoining room and returns 
with a basket on her arm. She puts a broad- 
brimmed straw hat on her head and leaves the 
house to purchase the provisions. 

In her absence my uncle questions me as to 
the manner of my flitting and shows me through 
the apartment, which last is not a labor requir- 
ing a great deal of time. Succeeding the ware- 
room is a small dining-room with a tiled floor, 
which communicates with a doll’s house kitchen, 
dimly lighted from the corridor ; then comes a 
room where every nook and corner is filled with 
old account-books and samples of all kinds of 
merchandise, which serves the double use of 
bedroom and private office. And that em- 
braces all. 

While my uncle is expatiating on the advan- 
tages and conveniences of his modest “tempo- 
rary ” quarters I speculate, not without consid- 
erable misgiving, where he can intend to bestow 
me. Perhaps he thinks I have a room at a 
hotel ? This feeling of uncertainty as to where 
I am to lay my head worries me exceedingly, 
and I would like to exchange a few words on 
the subject with my new guardian ; but, on the 
one hand, the disillusionizing process I have 
gone through since my arrival has made me 
tongue-tied, and, on the other, little Alice’s 
presence intimidates, me. We have found our 
way back to the dining-room, where Mme. 
Clemence’s daughter is engaged in setting the 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


149 


w table. She performs her duties with the self- 
reliant air of one who feels herself at home and 
knows just where to look for everything. In a 
few words she informs me .that her mother oc- 
cupies another apartment in the hotfse, but that 
they have a table in common with my uncle, 
who has associated himself in partnership with 
them for the purpose of trading in Yosges lin- 
ens ; only the business in conducted in Mine. 
Clemence’s name out of regard for Scipio Mou- 
ginot’s susceptibilities, whose self-respect will 
not permit him to sink to the position of a 
retailer. 

Sick and sore at heart with my mortifying 
fall from the dizzy height of my gorgeous 
dreams, my appearance must be somewhat 
that of a soul in purgatory. I sit sulking in 
my corner, while Alice flits in and out, from the 
table to the buffet, from the buffet to the kitchen, 
placing a fork here, wiping a glass there, ar- 
ranging salt-cellar and oil-jug symmetrically, 
all with the airy grace and lightness of a bird 
hopping from twig to twig. 

As regards Alice, too, disappointment is "my 
lot. In the first place, she is little Alice ” no 
longer ; she has already acquired the easy man- 
ners and the gravity of a young lady grown. 
Again, it does not seem to me that my unlooked 
for appearance has produced on her anything 
like the effect I was expecting it to do. 

While Alice’s apparition at Villotte and her 
brief visit there assumed in my eyes the pro- 
portions of a great event, I was for her but one 
of the many incidents of her journey ; I played 


150 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


the secondary part of a chance-met acquaint- 
ance, whose face is forgotten almost as soon as 
seen in the whirl of Parisian gayety and dis- 
tractions. In the solitude of my country home 
not a day passed without my thinking of her ; 
hut Alice, in noisy, pleasure - loving Paris, 
doubtless had so man}^ things to occupy her 
that she in a certain measure forgot me. I 
can see it in the way she looks at me and speaks 
to me ; not that she is not perfectly polite and 
affable, but her manner toward me is one of in- 
souciant though amiable indifference. 

I am revolving these considerations in my 
mind when Mme. Clemence returns with her 
purchases. She deposits on the buffet a box of 
sardines, a fowl purchased ready roasted at the 
restaurant, a terrine of foie gras, some grapes 
and three silver-sealed bottles. The doorbell 
rings soon after and there appear successively 
a woman with oysters on the sheik and a white- 
jacketed caterer, who produces a dish of smok- 
ing-hot pork cutlets, garnished with gherkins. 
In the twinkling of an eye all these good things 
are arranged in their proper order on the board, 
the wine is uncorked, the sardines are trans- 
ferred to a shallow china dish and the foie gras 
is placed as a pendant to the roasted fowl. 

“ Take your places ! ” cries my uncle, who 
has exchanged his frock for a house-coat, and 
proceeds to seat himself at Mme. Clemence’s 
side. “ Faith, Jacques, you’ll have to take pot 
luck with us; we were not looking for the 
pleasure of breaking the bread of hospitality 
with you this evening,” 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


151 


I am amazed by the excellence and profusion 
of this dinner improvised at half an hour’s 
notice, and which would have cost Mme. Mou- 
ginot-Pechoin a whole day of preparation. Can 
this be what they call pot luck ? For people in 
pecuniary difficulties the fare does not seem so 
very poor. 

Mme. Clemence helps me to a dozen of the 
oysters. I have never tasted them before, and 
the sight alone of the strange bivalves inspires 
me with disgust. ISTot wishing to appear too 
countrified, however, I make a desperate effort 
and gulp them down ; but there is such an ex- 
pression of misery on my face as I turn them in 
my mouth that irrepressible Alice bursts out 
in a fit of laughter. Scipio Mouginot has re- 
covered his good humor and makes frantic 
efforts to bring the rest of us up to his pitch of 
gayety. Mme. Clemence alone preserves her 
seriousness ; her faint smiles are evidently 
forced. She and my uncle, supposing I have 
my hands full with getting rid of my oysters, 
exchange mysterious remarks of which I do not 
understand a word. 

“ Did you see those gentlemen ? ” Mme. 
Clemence asks, with an anxious air. 

“Yes — or rather I saw the lawyer; but 
that’s sufficient.” 

“ Well, what is the result ? ” 

“ You need not worry. We’ll make a little 
reclamation — something to shut Plumerel’s 
mouth— and that will end the matter.” 

Scipio Mouginot’s answers appear to have a 
reassuring effect on Mme. Clemence, and she 


152 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


heaves a sigh of relief. Her face is pensive 
still, but she takes more part in the conversa- 
tion and smiles more unreservedly at her part- 
ner’s drolleries. That worthy man seems to 
enjoy a perfect appetite and a serenity that 
nothing can ruffle. With his napkin tucked 
into the bosom of his waistcoat and spread 
across his manly chest, with his unclouded brow, 
limpid eye and smiling lips, he swallows his 
oysters with supreme content, sips his chablis 
like a connoisseur and talks like a book, never 
losing a mouthful. Politics, the stock market, 
free trade, the relations of capital and labor 
— on all these questions does he discourse with 
great spirit and eloquence, and he solves them 
with the same facility with which he would cut 
you off a wing of the fowl. 

As for Mme. Clemence, Alice and me, we have 
no knowledge of political and economic science, 
but we are none the less dazzled and fascinated 
by the facile flow of language of the silver- 
tongued orator, and we all drink in his words 
with equal admiration. Is it to be attributed 
to the terrine of foie gras or the chablis pre- 
miere ? Is it to the fecundity of the uncle, the 
white wine or Alice’s brown eyes that I owe my 
intoxication ? I cannot tell, but the aplomb of 
my self-appointed guardian begins to give me 
more backbone, my hopes revive, like flowers 
after a shower of rain, and at sight of Scipio 
Mouginot, so mettlesome and gay, so superb in 
his serene self-confidence, even in the midst of 
his reverses, my trust in the future comes back 
to me. 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


153 


When at dessert, therefore, they all unite in 
a libation to welcome me to Paris, it is with a 
barety perceptible dash of insouciant bravado 
that I touch my glass to the glasses of my en- 
tertainers, and especially to that of little Alice. 
I am so bewitched by her smile, I feel the feverish 
influence of the great city already so strong upon 
me, that I myself fall into the very self-same 
sin of indifference and forgetfulness with which 
I was so lately reproaching the daughter of 
Mme. Clemence. I no longer remember that 
at Jeand’heurs, only twenty-four hours ago, 
other glasses clinked to the toast of my speedy 
and safe return ; I think no more of the friendly 
faces of Cousin Delorme and his wife and Zelie. 
They seem to have receded a long, long dis- 
tance, and to be lost among undefined, shadowy 
shapes. I have no eyes for any but my new 
hosts, and my induration of heart is such that 
I am not even aware of any ingratitude. 

We find it so enjoyable sitting around the 
table and Uncle Scipio is in such good spirits 
that we take no heed of the flight of time. My 
uncle suddenly pulls his watch from his pocket. 

“ If it isn’t ten o’clock ! Jacques must be 
tired after his journey and we mustn’t keep 
him — ” 

But I think, Monsieur Mouglnot,” Mme. 
Saintot gently remarks, that your nephew 
came straight here from the station and was 
expecting to stay with you.” 

“ I see, I see,” says my uncle. “ You did not 
take a room at the hotel, Jacques, ? ” 

On my replying in the iiegative, he adds : 


154 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


“ And your baggage, where is it ? ” 

I inform him that my wardrobe is at Jean- 
d’heurs,and that I have all my fortune about my 
person. He remains sunk in thought for a mo- 
ment, then, turning to Mme. Saintot : 

“ Where the deuce are we to find a place for 
Jacques to sleep in, madame ? 99 
The lady advises that a bed be made up in 
the wareroom. 

“Ha! par bleu, yes; in the wareroom!” 
laughingly exclaimed Uncle Scipio. “ There 
will be no lack of linen sheets ! ” 

In a little less than no time the. table is 
cleared, the cloth removed and the prepara- 
tions for my logdment are proceeding. Every 
one bears a hand to help in the good work. My 
uncle takes one of the mattresses from his bed, 
Mme. Clemence goes up to her apartment and 
comes back with a load of sheets and blankets, 
and the outfit is spread in guise of bed on the 
counter in the great shop ; a roll of linen will 
do me for a bolster and little Alice lends me 
her pillow. In less than half an hour every- 
thing is read} r . Mme. Saintot and Alice wish 
me good-night and ascend to their rooms, and 
Uncle Scipio and I are left tete-a-tete in my 
dormitory. 

“Come,” sa} r s he, setting the candlestick 
down upon a chair and giving the improvised 
bed a punch or two to test its softness, “you’ll 
sleep well enough there, provided you don’t kick 
too much, for if you do, you will be liable to 
wake up and find yourself on the floor. In any 
case, one night isn’t a lifetime, and in the morn- 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


155 


ing we’ll look around and see if we can’t find 
something more comfortable for you. And so, 
good-night, Jacques. To-morrow we’ll have a 
serious talk about your affairs.” 

He retires to his chamber and I undress 
hastily, blow out my candle and climb to my 
bed, assisted by a chair. My couch is rather 
hard, and the roll of linen is a poor substitute 
for the downy pillow of my little pallet at 
Jeand’heurs ; still, I experience a sense of deep 
satisfaction as I stretch my weary limbs, but 
sleep is slow in coming to me. 

The clatter of the omnibuses and the dull 
rumbling of the market-gardeners’ wagons 
shake the windows of the faubourg at every 
instant. I can hear the strumming of a guitar 
and the cracked voice of a strolling* musician 
who is bellowing his romances in the wine shop 
on the ground floor. The gas-jets in the court 
cast a pale, unearthly light through the shutter- 
less windows on the rolls of linen and heads of 
flax that crowd the shelves. I am feverishly 
excited at the thought that I am in Paris ; the 
least of the unaccustomed sounds causes me to 
start in alarm on my narrow counter, whence I 
am in momentary fear of tumbling off into the 
dark void. At last, however, thanks in part to 
the hea'dy odor of the hemp, my noddle presses 
more heavily on little Alice’s pillow, and, think- 
ing of her, I fall asleep. 

CHAPTER X. 

I am abruptly awakened next morning by 
the noise of a milkman’s wagon coming in from 


156 MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 

the railway station with its clattering, jangling 
load of cans filled with the lacteal fluid. I rub 
my eyes and wonder where in the world I am ; 
when I attempt to stretch my limbs 1 am sur- 
prised to find them a little stiff and sore, and 
then at last it occurs to me that I have slept on 
the hard planks of the counter. I have no 
means of ascertaining the hour, but the activity 
of the court and the noises rising from the 
street inform me that the morning must be 
pretty well advanced, although the light that 
penetrates the windows is still strangely dim. 
I jump down from my counter and proceed 
with all haste to make my toilet, fearing lest 
customers or Mme Clemence may come in and 
surprise me in primitive attire. In twenty 
minutes, having washed my face, combed my 
hair and dressed from top to toe, I steal noise- 
lessly to the door of the dining-room and listen. 
Everything is as still as a mouse in that quar- 
ter; Uncle Scipio is evidently still sound 'asleep. 
In the regions above a like silence appears to 
reign. At this time of the day, I say to rc^self, 
the pharmacy at Villotte has already had many 
customers. Clearly, people are later risers at 
Paris than in the country. To kill time I open 
one of the windows, and leaning on the cross- 
bar, watch the proceedings of those in the 
court below. 

The inhabitants of the other apartments are 
apparently earlier in their habits than my 
uncle. A woman with a gaudy kerchief about 
her head and in down-at-heel shoes is sweeping 
the stone pavement, an old-clo’ man is hanging 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


157 


out his stock in trade of soldiers’ trousers and 
old boots, a binder is arranging* on his window- 
sill a series of volumes tight-locked in a wooden 
press ; noises of every kind come- from tlie half- 
open windows and mingle confusedly in the 
heavy air of the court like the swarming of a 
hive of bees : the rat-tat-tat of a cobbler soling 
a pair of shoes, a locksmith who sets your teeth 
on edge with his grating, creaking files, the 
monotonous tick-tack of sewing machines, the 
whole forming a concert like an army of locusts 
in a field on a summer day. While I am 
watching the spectacle of laboring Paris awak- 
ing to its daily toil I suddenly become conscious 
of a hand laid on my shoulder. I turn and find 
myself face to face with my uncle, with clean- 
shaven face, just buttoning his jacket. 

“ Good-morning, Jacques,” says he, in a 
loud, cheerful voice. “Up already ? An excel- 
lent habit, that of early rising. Did you sleep 
well? Yes? Good. Now that we are alone 
tell me your story, and how you came to leave 
my brother Victor’s pharmacy.” 

I make a clean breast of it and own up to my 
dispute with Aristide and the subsequent as- 
sault, urging in mitigation the wrath of the 
Mouginot-Pechoins, my dread of being incar- 
cerated at Pestel’s and my flight from my 
cousin’s paper mill. He listens with a smile on 
his lips and rubs his hands, and when I have 
finished my narrative makes answer : 

“ Well, we’ll see if matters can’t be arranged. 
I will write to Victor telling him of your arrival 
here and offering to be responsible for your edu- 


158 


MY tJNCLE SCIPIO. 


cation. From the way things have turned out 
I am inclined to think he will accept my propo- 
sition.” 

I thank my uncle profusely and assure him of 
my eternal gratitude. 

“ You owe me no thanks,” he goes on in his 
patronizing way ; “ I am only following the dic- 
tates of my feelings. Come, we’ll cut it short 
and talk common sense. You can see for your- 
self that we are too scant of room here to keep 
you with us, so I shall he forced to put you — 
temporarily — to school, where I hope you will 
work hard and pick up enough knowledge to 
enable you to be of help to me in working out 
the new vein that I shall infallibly strike before 
I am much older.” 

At hearing the word “school” my face elon- 
gated perceptibly. What ! can it be that I have 
found little Alice only to lose her again immedi- 
ately ? Did I flee from the wrath of vulturine 
Pestel only"to be imprisoned in a jail that may 
be even yet more unendurable ? My uncle, be- 
holding my chapfallen expression, makes haste 
to exclaim : 

“ Don’t be alarmed ! it won’t be a place like 
that hole of old Pestel’s. The Literary and Sci- 
entific Institute, where you will be received as 
a pupil on my recommendation, is controlled b} r 
an old friend of mine, a man of parts and lib- 
eral ideas, who has substituted improved meth- 
ods of instruction for the old-fashioned, time- 
worn routine of the universities. His system is 
original, his erudition unlimited ; his establish- 
ment is the gathering-place of all that is most 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


159 


distinguished among the youth of France and 
foreign lands. Congratulate yourself on this 
most fortunate opportunity ! Evariste Corne- 
vin is a man of a million, and Mme. Cornevin is 
a mother to the hoj^s. Thanks to me, you will 
he treated as if you were their own son.” 

I try to look pleased, hut from somewhere 
away down in the depths of my inner being I 
feel a vague sensation of melancholy rising, as 
the fog rises and overspreads the meadows in 
the mornings of October. 

“Come,” my uncle continues, “ don’t look 
so glum ; you will have no reason to complain. 
Besides, you will come every week and spend 
your Sunday with us. And so that is settled ; 
1 will go and .write my letter to Brother Vic- 
tor, we will have breakfast, and that done I’ll 
go with you to Cornevin’s school. The weather 
is fine, we’ll go afoot, and you’ll have a chance 
to see a good bit of Paris on the way.” 

Mme. Clemence and Alice make their appear- 
ance while he is uttering these last words. My 
uncle makes them acquainted with his plans, 
then retires to his chamber to compose the 
epistle for the Mouginot - Pechoins. Mme. 
Saintot, first cheering me with a few kindly 
words of encouragement, devotes herself to 
getting the breakfast ready, and I am left 
alone with Alice. 

She has donned her lutestring apron once 
again, and, softly crooning to herself, is ar- 
ranging the books and writing materials on 
her desk. My eyes follow her movements with 
silent admiration, and my heart grows heavy 


160 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


within me at the thought that I am so soon to 
leave her. Something tells her, doubtless, of 
the look that is fixed on her so wistfully, for 
she turns her eyes on me with a sudden move- 
ment. 

“Why do you wear that look,” she says 
with a mischievous smile, “ as if you had lost 
all your friends? Do you take it so to heart 
that 'you are going to board with the Corne- 
vins ? There is no reason why you should ; 
they are very nice people, and you won’t find 
time hang heavy on your hands.” 

“ Do you know them ? ” 

“ I should say I did. Mother takes me to 
their soirees now and then ; it is very amus- 
ing ; there is music and dancing ; the young- 
men are all invited, and every one enjoys him- 
self.” 

The idea of a school where dancing is al- 
lowed quite upsets all my notions of scholastic 
discipline ; still, there is a certain degree of 
comfort in it, and I ask Alice if she shall go 
to the Cornevins’ soirees when I am at the 
institute. 

“I cannot say,” she replies, with a slight 
movement of the shoulders. “ Mother has a 
great deal to worry her just now, and has no 
heart for dancing ; but aside from that you are 
to come here every Sunday, and we will try our 
best to divert you. When the weather becomes 
finer we will go to the country, and you shall 
see how pleasant it is among the woods of 
Montmorency.” 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


161 


“ Is it pleasanter there than in the woods of 
Villotte ? ” 

“ There’s no comparison ! ” she replies, with 
something of a disdainful air. 

Her irreverent way of speaking of the woods 
of my native land seems to me to border on in- 
gratitude, and I retort on her : 

“ And yet, you seemed to like it pretty well 
down there in the fallows of the Petit- Jure, 
among the ferns ! ” 

What are you talking about with your 
ferns and your fallows ? ” she asks, with an air 
as if I were talking Greek to her. 

“ Why, the fallows where we sat one July 
morning and listened to the larks singing, and 
where you told me about Vivien — ” 

“ Oh, yes,” she murmurs with a vague smile. 
But I can see very clearly that she has no re- 
membrance of the matters of which I speak. 
She has quite forgotten this detail of her visit 
at Villotte, and her obliviousness chagrins me 
bitterly. 

We bolt our breakfast summarily, like men 
of business ; then Uncle Scipio dons his spring 
overcoat and I put on my straw hat. The 
moment of parting is come. Mine. Clemence 
gives me a look from out her moistened eyes 
and cordially shakes my hand. I step up to 
Alice and give her a kiss; and I, too, feel 
somehow as if it would do me good to cry. As 
for her, prettily tossing back her raven curls, 
she speaks words of comfort to me : 

“ It won’t be long, Jacques ! You are to 
come and see us next Sunday, remember ! ” 


162 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


The stirring* events of my recent existence 
have caused me to lose run of the days of the 
week, and in a stupid kind of way I falter : 

“ When will that be — next Sunday ? ” 

Alice gives way to laughter. 

“ Why, in a week from now, of course, to- 
day being Sunday. Wait a moment, I will 
give you something to help your memory.” 

She rummages in her desk and extracts from 
it a miniature calendar. 

“ There/’ she says, with another burst of 
laughter, “ if you will only consult this you 
cannot make a mistake, for the Sundays are 
marked on it in letters of red.” 

I put Alice’s precious souvenir carefully 
away in my breast pocket and we are off. 

The sky is overspread with thin, fleecy 
clouds, but the pavements are dry and we 
strike a brisk gait as we descend the faubourg, 
where there are currents of clattering drays 
and hurrying pedestrians circulating in oppo- 
site directions. The never-ceasing procession 
of vehicles, the countless army of by-passers, 
the shrill cries of the street venders, the tall 
houses, all conspire to distract and daze me. 

There is a spot where the flood that comes 
rolling and tumbling down the faubourg en- 
counters another flood, even yet more tumultu- 
ous, which fills the wudtli of a broad cross- 
street, planted with handsome trees, and my 
uncle shouts in my ear : 

“ The Boulevards ! ” 

With infinite pains and labor w>e push our 
way through this roaring human tide that 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


163 


appears to have no end, through the serried 
rows of vehicles, and come out upon a long 
thoroughfare that seems no less populous and 
busy than the first. The crowd is everywhere 
in this huge city, at whose swarming multi- 
tudes I begin to feel a sensation of terror and 
alarm. This street, which is dark and narrow 
and some half a league in length, suddenly dis- 
charges us into a luminous, wide space. The 
sun shines out from behind the silvery clouds ; 
in the tempered light I behold a great river 
pouring its green tide between tree-bordered 
banks, and on each side, among groves and 
clumps of verdure, a far-reaching perspective 
of lofty mansions and of palaces; above the 
roofs rise towers, slate-covered domes, the 
tapering spires of churches. We cross a monu- 
mental bridge, the chief ornament of which is 
an equestrian statue, and Scipio Mouginot, 
with a sweeping, majestic gesture, says for my 
information : 

“The Quais and the Seine.” 

Now we have reached the other bank. On, 
on we go, through a labyrinth of narrow, tort- 
uous streets, where other crowds are swarm- 
ing in the midst of the same eternal uproar of 
vehicles and ear-splitting cries. I am so be- 
wildered that I can distinguish nothing clearly ; 
a dull headache causes me to feel as if my tem- 
ples were bound with a hoop of iron, and I find 
it difficult to keep up with my indefatigable 
uncle, who drags me along by the hand. At 
last we enter the main street of Montrouge. 
The houses are parted by wider intervals, the 


164 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


numerous gardens give to the dwellings a more 
airy look, and I breathe more easily. 

“ Here we are/’ my relative announces. 

He has stopped before a wall of dressed stone 
on which is a straggling display of big black 
letters, and I read : 

SCIENTIFIC AND LITERARY INSTITUTE. 

E. Cornevin, Principal. 

Scipio Mouginot opens a postern door situated 
to the right of the great gateway, holds a brief 
parley with a concierge, and conducts me across 
a courtyard adorned with a few beds of sickly- 
looking flowers to a square structure on which 
the former inscription is repeated, this time in 
letters of gold. Above a two-leaved door in 
the entrance hall are these words : PrincipaVs 
Office. My uncle knocks, and, not waiting for 
an answer, enters. 

At the sound of our steps a gentleman who 
is comfortably ensconced in a fauteuil before a 
desk, in the middle of the room whose walls are 
quite concealed by books, wheels about and rises 
impetuously : 

“ Mouginot ! ” 

S( Cornevin, old fellow ! ” 

The two friends shake hands effusively, while 
I stare with might and main at the principal of 
the institute. 

Evariste Cornevin has not the pedantic so- 
lemnity or the forbidding aspect of my old peda- 
gogue Pestel. He is a man of middle age, of 
average height, quick and nervous in his move- 
ments, with a scanty reddish beard and pale- 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


165 


blue eyes that seem lost in continual reverie. 
He is in slippers, wears a cinnamon-colored 
suit, and his long' face with its thoughtful 
forehead is surmounted by a cap of yellow 
leather. 

a How is business with you ? Uncle Scipio 
inquires with an accent of solicitude, “and how 
is my dear, kind friend, Mme. Cornevin ?” 

“ Thanks, my wife is well, as is your humble 
servant ; as for the business, it is jogging along 
in a leisurely sort of way, lento pede. There 
seems to be no decided change since the re-open- 
ing, but I have made up my mind to be at the big 
drum and advertise for public favor. See, here 
is the proof of an ad. for the great news- 
papers.’ ? 

He unrolls a long strip of white paper on 
which is printed in large type : 

Literary and Scientific Institute , under the 
management of Evariste Cornevin, Master of 
Arts. Pupils prepared for the special schools. 
New method of teaching the dead and modern 
languages. Ten years of success. 

“Very good indeed,” declared my uncle. 
“ The only way of reaching people nowadays 
is by advertising. They can’t fail being at- 
tracted by that.” 

“That’s just what I think,” M. Cornevin 
ingenuously replies, “ only the fourth page of 
the big journals cost money, and I see a diffi- 
culty before me. The funds are low.” 

“ See here,” insinuatingly says Scipio Mougi- 


1G6 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


not, as if suddenly struck by a very bright 
idea, “let me have your ad. I know of an 
agency that will take hold of the business on 
reasonable terms and give you plent3^ of time. 
Meantime here is another pupil for you.” 

“You are a friend, Mouginot, you are !” ex- 
claims Cornevin, favoring me with an inquisi- 
tive and smiling look. “ Who is it ? ” 

“ My nephew.” 

Cornevin continues to smile, but rather un- 
easily. 

“Yes, my nephew,” continues my uncle, 
warming up, “and as dear to me as a son ! A 
boy who will do you credit, my dear fellow ! 
A budding intelligence that gives promise of 
blossoming into a wondrous flower.” 

“ Scipio Mouginot’s nephew,” M. Cornevin 
courteously rejoins, “cannot help but be a 
person of distinction.” 

He interrupts himself in h .s little speech, ex- 
tends his hand to me, takes a pamphlet from 
his desk and thrusts it on me : 

“ Here, my lad, take this and amuse your- 
self with it while we talk business. It is the 
list of studies.” 

I go and take a seat in a corner where I can 
look over the pamphlet at my leisure. It in- 
forms me that up to the present time no one 
lias succeeded in teaching the dead languages 
to children, and that Cornevin will pledge him- 
self, within the space of two years, to make 
them talk Greek and Latin fluently, as well as 
several of the modern languages. While I 
cudgel my brains to get at the meaning of the 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


167 


method briefly set forth in the List of Studies , 
M. Cornevin and my uncle are conversing in 
the embrasure of a window. They have for- 
gotten my presence and talk in their usual 
tone, and, willy-nilly, fragments of the conver- 
sation come to my ears. 

“ You are aware that the school does not fur- 
nish the trousseau,” says M. Cornevin, rather 
timidly. “ As for the terms of payment, I will 
make them easy for you.” 

“ Cornevin,” cries my uncle, with a superb 
gesture of disinterestedness, “your terms are 
mine. Let us put aside these paltry money 
questions.” 

“No, no!” quickly rejoins the principal; 
“ on the contrary, we will take them up now 
and dispose of them, so as not to have to refer 
to them again. Come, what say you to a 
thousand francs and the trousseau — is it too 
much ? ” 

“ My dear friend, intellectual culture is some- 
thing on which it is impossible to set too high 
a price. Make what terms you will, the boy 
will still be your everlasting debtor*” 

“ Payable in advance at the commencement 
of each quarter,” M. Cornevin gently inti- 
mates. 

“That/s all right. Only, if you have no ob- 
jections, I am going to settle your account in 
kind. My till is empty just at the moment, but 
I have some superfine Vosges linen in stock 
from which you can supply yourself at dis- 
cretion ; an establishment like yours is always 
wanting sheets and pillow-cases.” 


168 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


M. Cornevin does not g*o into ecstasies over 
the proposition ; he is silent and thoughtful ; it 
seems to me even that his face wears a slightly 
disgusted look. Whereon Scipio Mouginot adds: 

“ I can also let you have some most delicious 
cheese, just in from Gerardmer. It makes an 
excellent dessert for breakfast.” 

“ Very well,” the schoolmaster finally says, 
“ I will accept your offer, subject, however, to 
the ratification of my minister of finance, Mme. 
Cornevin, that is to s.ay. Come along; we J ll 
go and present your nephew to her.” 

We pass into an adjoining room, where I am 
introduced to Mme. Cornevin. She is a little, 
shriveled, dried-up woman, in a faded blue 
dressing-gown ; she is as wrinkled and pimply 
as a grape-vine leaf after the first frosts of 
autumn, but is extremely vivacious ; her voice 
carries in its accent a reminder of the sunny 
South, and her kittenish airs are still further 
accentuated by a crop of little false curls that 
rest in frizzly disorder on her forehead. It 
looks as if she were accustomed to lead her 
husband by the nose, but she is a good-souled 
little body and gives a cordial welcome to 
Scipio Mouginot, who has doubtless circum- 
vented her with his wiles, as he does all wo- 
men. She gives me a friendly pat on the cheek, 
and with the readiness of a housewife whose 
linen closet is not overstocked accepts the pro- 
posed terms of payment for my schooling. As 
for the trousseau, my uncle has hopes that the 
Mouginot-Pechoins will do the right thing. 

These matters of business having been once 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


169 


arranged, M. Cornevin shows us over the 
house. The few boarders who have returned 
after their vacation have taken advantage of 
its being Sunday to go into Paris to see the 
sights, so that the institute is deserted. No 
mercy is shown us : dormitories, study, recita- 
tion-room, parlor— all, we are forced to visit. 
Last of all we inspect the dining-room, on the 
white paper and woodwork of which the serv- 
ants have left the imprint of their grimy 
hands. An oblong table with an oilcloth 
cover stretches nearly the entire length of the 
apartment, and around it some twenty chairs 
are arranged in a symmetrical festoon. 

“This is the refectory/’ says M. Cornevin 
with an absent air of inspiration, while his wife 
fills four claret glasses with imitation sherry, 
“the banquet hall where thrice a day our 
young friends participate in the family repasts. 
The scholars eat with their masters ; they are 
privileged to listen to their literary and scien- 
tific discussions and thus at the same time as- 
similate pabulum of mind and body. Mougi- 
not, a drop of Malaga ! I drink to the success 
of uncle and nephew ! ” 

We all touch one another’s glass in friendty 
salutation, then my uncle draws his watch from 
its pocket. His business has claims on him ; 
he takes leave of the Cornevins, embraces me, 
and we accompany him to the street door. 

“ Au revoir , Jacques ! ” he exclaims. “Re- 
member the motto of the imperial philosopher 
of old Rome : f Laboremus ! ’ and engrave it 
on your heart.” 


170 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


I think he is gone and am returning- to the 
house, slowly and sorrowfully, behind the Cor- 
nevin couple, when the postern gate is again 
thrown back and in the space between it and 
the casing Uncle Scipio’s face appears; he 
waves his hand in a last farewell, again shouts : 
“ Labor emus ! ” then vanishes for good. 

The Cornevins have returned to their respect- 
ive occupations, leaving me to my reflections 
in a garden situated behind the house, where 
there are some gymnastic apparatus. The 
garden, which consists almost entirely of lawn 
where the foliage of the tangled, uncared-for 
shrubbery is beginning to wither and die under 
the chill breath of autumn, presents no in- 
apt image of my own sorrowful frame of mind. 
Like me, it is neglected and abandoned. Alone 
some purple asters, a few pale chrysanthemums, 
display their belated glories there, while the 
great willows strew the ground with their 
leaves of silvery green. The fog that lifted for 
a moment, only to return thicker than before, 
again conceals the cheerless sky, the surround- 
ing objects are softened and distorted in the 
penetrating gray mist. A convent bell tolls 
slowly in the distance, and the soft, sad even- 
ing summons — it is my first time of hearing it 
at Paris —awakens memories of home. I am 
at Villotte once more, and the nostalgia of the 
loved native land lies heavy on my heart. The 
moisture rises to my eyes ; then my thoughts 
turn to Alice. Her memory pervades my be- 
ing, sweetly soft and soothing as the sound of 
the distant bell. I take from my pocket the 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


171 


calendar, where each red letter is the token that 
I shall see my little friend again, and tenderly 
kis^ the small square of cardboard on which 
Alice’s brown eves have rested. 

CHAPTER XI. 

A week after taking up my abode with the 
Cornevins I see little Alice once more and 
spend a delightful Sunday in her company. My 
uncle takes us to the Louvre and the Luxem- 
bourg, we have a good dinner at a restaurant, 
and when I go back to school, where I am be- 
ginning to feel a little more at home, it is with 
a braver and more cheerful heart. I have 
written my good cousins, the Delormes, an 
affectionate letter apologizing for my abrupt 
manner of leaving them. As for the Mougi- 
not-Pechoins, Uncle Scipio’s prediction has 
proved true ; they were not sorry at heart to 
be rid of me, and everything in that quarter 
has been arranged most amicably. In a letter 
abounding in lamentations over my innate 
wickedness and ingratitude my uncle Victor 
has resigned his authority into his brother’s 
hands, and has promised, on behalf of self and 
the Mouginot-Tupins, to be responsible for two- 
thirds of the cost of my education. My modest 
wardrobe has been forwarded from Villotte 
and added to here, so that as regards apparel 
I am now nearly on an equality with the other 
boys. Uncle Scipio has carried out his agree- 
ment like a little man ; a day or two after my 
installation a porter wheels his push-cart up to 
the door and turns over to Mine. Cornevin his 


172 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


freight of Vosges linen, in addition to which 
there are numerons pine boxes containing odor- 
iferous Gerardmer cheese. There is nothrng 
left forme to do now but obey my uncle’s in- 
junctions and reduce to practice the motto of 
the imperial philosopher of ancient Rome : 
“ Labor emus ! ” 

My will is good enough, but the work comes 
hard to me at first. The methods pursued at 
the Cornevin Institute are strange to me and 
throw me off the track at starting. They 
have put me in the second division, the primary 
class, and I can see myself now as I looked 
when I entered the great recitation-room to 
participate in the lesson in mathematics, given 
by M. Oscar Fencherot, who appears to be the 
professor-of-all-work of the school. 

In the vast, naked, whitewashed room, where 
the only furniture is a raised platform, a black- 
board and two or three rows of benches, eight 
pupils, ranging between twelve and fourteen 
years of age, are scattered here and there in 
various easy, lounging attitudes. Almost all 
of them are foreigners ; there are four Rou- 
manians, two Servians and a creole from San 
Domingo ; the French nation is only repre- 
sented by a young relative of Mme. Cornevin 
and me. On the platform our teacher, Oscar 
Fencherot, rears his tall, lank form, intermi- 
nably long as a day of fasting, leaner than any 
herring, lost in his poor old shabby clothes. 
His face is always scrupulously clean-shaven, 
the cheeks pale and sunken, the eyes unnatu- 
rally bright; the long brown hair, thrown 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


173 


carelessly backward on the neck, reveals the 
ample proportions of his forehead. His arms 
are like the sails of a windmill as they revolve 
nervously about his head, and he has a trick 
of scanning* his sentences that seems to give 
him much satisfaction, rolling them from off 
his tongue in monotonous, sonorous rhythm. 
This cadenced declamation seems to act as a 
spell on the scholars ; it hypnotizes them ; little 
by little they commence to wink and blink, 
like people dozing off, and it is only by stuffing 
themselves with sweetmeats and candy that 
they manage to ward off slumber. As for me, 
I open eyes and ears to their utmost extent. 
I do my best to understand, but the words I 
catch are unknown mysteries to me. With 
the remembrance of the Pestelian method still 
fresh in my mind, I have preserved an invinci- 
ble repugnance for the study of mathematics — 
first, because I have been so many times flogged 
and “ kept in ” on its account ; next, because 1 
never could make head or tail of it. But, alas ! 
the problems of the Villotte pedagogue were 
clear as crystal compared with the enigmas 
that Fencherot presents to us. At the Cor- 
nevin Institute mathematics are styled “ the 
philosophy of numbers,” the equality of trian- 
gles is disguised under the appellation of “Eu- 
rythmy of triangular figures,” and everything 
else is on the same scale of grandeur. After 
3 T ielding my attention for half an hour it seems 
to me that jociy head has attained the dimensions 
of a pumpkin and is ready to burst. From 
time to time, fortunately, M. Fencherot inter- 


174 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


lards his unattractive formulas with digres- 
sions on the modern poets and recitations of 
fragments of poetry, which would seem to have 
hut a remote connection with the science of 
numbers. These excursions from the arid realm 
of figures rest me. I find a charm in the ryth- 
mic swing and music of the verse, and as on 
the whole I display more attention than the 
majority of my classmates, I am high in the 
good graces of the professor. 

After the lesson in mathematics comes a 
recitation in Greek or Latin, when M. Cor- 
nevin explains his method of inculcating the 
dead languages in two years. 

At noon the bell rings for breakfast, and the 
two divisions file in to enjoy their repast in 
the white dining-room in company with M. and 
Mme. Cornevin, M. Fencherot and another 
teacher, active and lively as a squirrel, who 
has charge of the class in drawing. We are 
a scant twenty all together, and the foreign 
element predominates. 

The meals are abundant, the fare is exquisite ; 
it is evident that the Cornevin household have 
a weakness for good living, and we profit by 
their frailty. There is one queer thing, how- 
ever, and that is the extraordinary variations 
in the bill of fare. There will be weeks and 
weeks when our alimentary regimen is based 
on salmon ; at other times we have turkey 
stuffed with chestnuts until we are satiated. 
In the early days succeeding my 'arrival the ap- 
pearance on the table of the Gerardmer cheese in 
its round pine box was hailed with marks of the 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


175 


liveliest satisfaction ; the young- epicures would 
lick their chops in pleased anticipation at sight 
of the rich, creamy paste with its tasty season- 
ing of caraway seeds. When two weeks have 
elapsed, however, even the least fastidious 
among the boarders have begun to tire of 
Mme. Cornevin’s unwearying assiduity in serv- 
ing the caraway -flavored cheese for dessert at 
the morning and evening meals, and when the 
pine box is produced growls of indignation, not 
loud but deep, are heard about the oblong 
table. The worst of the matter is that through 
the thoughtless chatterbox of a cook, doubt- 
less, the two divisions have learned that this 
inexhaustible supply of cheese has its fountain- 
head in my uncle and serves to pay my tuition 
and board bills. Each day at recess, therefore, 
I am overwhelmed with humiliating reproaches ; 
I am made responsible for the monotonous same- 
ness of the dessert and find myself the target 
for cruel gibes. There is one boy in particular, 
a big Wallachian with olive complexion and 
black crinkly hair, who follows me up wher- 
ever I go, taking me by the arms and flatten- 
ing me against the wall, screaming at me in his 
gibberish : 

“ I am zeeck of your old djeeze ! You tell 
your onkel to djaucli it or I djoke ze wind out 
of you ! 

To escape their angry menaces I abandon the 
playground and sadly take refuge in a disused 
room. One afternoon, when the more than 
usually high condition of the confounded Ger- 
ardmer has brought down a storm of objurga- 


176 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


tions on my devoted head, I have sought the 
haven of the study-room, where the quiet is un- 
broken save for the gentle, drowsy purring of 
the stove. As I enter the room, not 3^et recov- 
ered from my dismay, I behold long-legged Os- 
car Fencherot seated by the fire and engaged 
in scribbling on scraps of paper. At sight of 
me he thrusts his lucubrations iqto his pocket ; 
one of the slips falls to the floor, however ; I 
pick it up, and before returning it to him cast 
my eye over the manuscript page where lines 
of unequal length succeed one another, divided 
off four by four. I hand the scrap of paper to 
M. Fencherot, exclaiming : 

“ It’s poetry, isn’t it ? ” 

“ Yes,” loftily replies the professor, who has 
taken a liking to me and deigns to honor me 
with his confidence, “ it is poetry.” 

“ And it was you who composed it, Monsieur 
Fencherot ? ” 

“ It was I. To comfort me amid the cares of 
stern reality I evoke the Chimera who sits by 
the gate of the temple of Art, and the magic 
words that fall from her lips I set to a strange 
and unknown rhythm.” 

“ Oh, please, please recite them to me ! r 

Manifestly pleased with my request, he con' 
sents to read me the product of his muse’s in 
spiration, and in a solemn, almost sacerdotal 
voice, declaims the following • 

“ Je reviens du pays des vertes nosialgies, 

Ou mon Amie au blanc visage lilial 

Sourit de sou sourire auguste et filial 

Aux roses d’autrefois. par les couchants routes. 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


177 


“ Je reviews de l’exil glauque des longs sommeils, 

Ou derriere la vitre embrumee et que gerce 
Le givre, une musique obsedante roe berce, 

Comroe un chant tres lointain tombant des cieux 
vermeils.’' . 

I do not. understand a word of it, and yet I 
am in an ecstacy. Is it some latent bent 
toward rhythm ? is it the sonorousness of the 
words that charms my sense of hearing*, and 
have those vocables, as Fencherot styles them, 
the gift of inoculating me with the poetic fren- 
zy ? I feel myself transported into a new, 
another world, with a boy’s ingenuous candor I 
admire my teacher’s bathos, and in enthusiastic 
terms I tell him of my admiration : 

“ It is fine, fine ! What a fortunate man you 
are, and how I wish that I could do as much ! ” 

Oscar Fencherot smiles and draws himself up 
proudly. 

“Not only must one be endowed with the 
natural gift,” he replies, “but still more he 
must acquire the art of prosody. I will teach 
it to you if you wish.” 

I accept his offer gratefully. I have a feel- 
ing that could I but write in verse I should find 
my way more readily to Alice’s heart. 

From this time forth M. Fencherot devotes 
his hours of recreation to initiating me into the 
mysteries of prosod 3" : he instructs me in the 
art of forming new, telling and unaccustomed 
rhymes, he shows me how inversion and the 
movable caesura may be employed to give 
pliancy to the verse and how it may be beauti- 
fied b} f metaphor and the use of appropriate 
and novel imagery. Thanks to this daity inter- 


178 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


course a close friendship springs up between us. 
M. Fencherot makes me the depositary, not only 
of his ambitions for the future, but also, a much 
longer list, of his failures and disappointments. 
He tells me that the unceasing grind of his 
daily duties is addling his brain, and likens 
himself to Apollo guarding the flocks and herds 
of Admetus. 

“With a talent like yours,” I remark, “I 
should think you ought to attain fame and 
fortune at a single bound.” 

He smiles ironically and gives a look at his 
old worn boots. 

“As for fame,” he replies, “I will say noth- 
ing ; but fortune !— A poet trusting to his pro- 
ductions to support him nowadays would starve. 
I took a position with Cornevin merely to keep 
the breath in my body. If I don’t handle any 
coin of the realm here I at least have a place to 
lay my head and something to put in my stom- 
ach.” 

“And yet, M. Cornevin ought to pay you a 
good salary ? ” 

“ He ought to pay me, it is true, and perhaps 
he will some day, for he is an honest man, but 
I have yet to see the color of his money.” 

This is news to me, and I express my sur- 
prise. From the style of living at the institute 
I had supposed the Cornevins to be people of 
means. 

“It won’t do to trust to appearances,” 
Fencherot replies. “ Cornevin, and I respect 
him for it, is more a man of imagination than 
a man of business. Before he adopted this 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


179 


business he was a publisher ; unfortunately for 
him he writes, and has a craze for seeing* him - 
self in print. Now you must know that a pub- 
lisher who publishes his own books is in pretty 
much the same case as a pastry cook who 
should take to eating- his own cakes and pies — 
he ruined himself by that venture, and his 
school, I fear, is not a paying speculation— he 
feeds his boys too well. But what use is there 
talking ? — people in our sphere don’t know how 
to calculate. Cornevin has a heart of gold, 
and his wife has the head of a canary. For all 
that they are nice people.” 

. Certainly the Cornevins are “ nice there 
is no denying that, and if we boys do not learn 
much at their academy, we are not a prey to mop- 
ing melancholy. Once a week the great double 
doors between the salon and dining-room are 
thrown back as tar as they will go and Mme. 
Cornevin, in a flaming scarlet gown, her re- 
dundancy of false locks bound up a la G-recque 
with fillets of bright red ribbon, receives her 
guests, who come by omnibus from every quar- 
ter of Paris. The vestibule is transformed into 
a cloakroom for the occasion ; the pupils, 
curled, perfumed and dressed in their Sunday 
best, act as ushers and make themselves agree- 
able to the ladies. 

The constituent elements of these hebdom- 
adal gatherings afford a curious study. There 
are bald old gentlemen, ill at ease in their enor- 
mous stiff-starched collars and wearing volu- 
minous white cravats, who entertain the com- 
pany with antediluvian jokes and anecdotes; 


180 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


ladies no longer young, in “ loud ” gowns 
which, like their owners, have seen better 
days — these are writers for the so-called society 
journals ; young and hairy poets, in black vel- 
vet sack-coats, who talk like Oscar Fencherot, 
cannot be lured away from the vicinity of the 
marble mantelpiece and recite unintelligible 
sonnets in a sepulchral voice ; pallid, angular 
young ladies, in poor, shabby little gowns, 
with white gloves that have unmistakably been 
to the cleaner’s, who torture the piano with 
length of “variations.” M. Cornevin recites a 
religious poem of his own composition called 
“ The Death of Eve,” in which Eve takes an in- 
sufferably long time to die. Mme. Cornevin 
sings and accompanies herself on the harp. We 
others, who have none of these gifts, act the 
part of the claque and are not chary of our 
applause. About eleven o’clock tea is served, 
with weak punch and cakes, then the chairs 
are pushed back against the wall and old and 
young, masters and pupils, devote themselves 
con amove to the obstreperous pleasures of an 
American quadrille. Every one capers and 
shakes the foot with a joy that is almost in- 
fantine. The little drawing-master in particu- 
lar is noticeable by reason of his wild antics ; 
when the figure called pastorelle is reached 
he has a stentorian way of shouting : “Hands 
all around ! ” that would infuse life and motion 
into one afflicted with ataxia. Hands are 
firmly grasped, and round and round, with con- 
stantly increasing speed and frenzy, the laugh- 
ing, screaming dancers whirl in the little parlor 


a 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


181 


until the floor shakes beneath them. Sometimes 
the figure becomes a farandole, which goes 
hounding and leaping through dining-room, 
study, recitation-room and parlor, comes tum- 
bling like a cataract down the staircase, pours 
through the corridors, and comes out, again 
triumphant, into the salon by way of the serv- 
ant’s stairs, while the poor young lady at the 
piano, who is more winded than the dancers, 
pounds away desperately on the old asthmatic 
instrument. At a quarter of twelve precisely 
every one dons his warm wraps, puts on his 
arctics, and hurries away on the double-quick so 
as not to miss the omnibus. And this little 
fete, of which the Cornevins never weary, is re- 
peated regularly every Thursday. 

Dearer to me even than these joyous Thurs- 
days are the Sundays I spend in the linen shop 
of the Faubourg Saint-Martin. By eight o’clock 
I am up and dressed, and with joy in my heart 
I foot it to Scipio Mouginot’s dwelling, where 
I am welcomed by the pale smile of Mme. 
Clemence and little Alice’s majestic airs. 
Most times my uncle is not at home. He is 
very busy, Mme. Clemence tells me confiden- 
tially, very deeply engrossed in the inquiries he 
is making; he does not even allow himself to 
rest on Sunday. In company with the mother 
and daughter my day slips pleasantly away ; 
sometimes, when Mme. Saintot has urgent work 
to attend to or is called away to look to the din- 
ner, Alice and I are left alone. At such times 
I suddenly and unaccountably become dumb 
and am content to feast my eyes on her, not 


182 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


daring- to tell her how fair she is in my sight. 
One day when we are thus tete-a-tete to- 
gether, however, and I am, as usual, speech- 
less, I thrust my hand into the breast-pocket of 
my coat and nervously fumble with a sheet of 
English paper there, neatly folded four times 
across, on which I have made a fair copy of 
some verses produced by me with intent to cele- 
brate the “ lilial ” beauty of Mile. Saintot. I 
have profited by my teacher’s instruction and am 
now able to construct verses that stand tolera- 
bly secure upon their feet, but, try as I may, 
am unable to attain my master’s sesquipeda- 
lian style and redundancy of rhyme. My 
poetry seems to me to express too plainly what 
I feel, and then my style borders too closely on 
the elegiac, so Fencherot says, to whom I com- 
municate my efforts. 

Such as they are, I feel for them the love 
that a father feels for children that he has had 
difficulty in rearing. For an entire week I have 
read and re-read, with tears standing in my 
eyes, this production, which begins in this way: 

“ Seul au fond de sa demeure, 

A toute heure, 

Sous les saules du jardin, 

Un amoureux reve et pleure ; 

Sou coeur saigne et sou chagrin 
Est sans fin.” 

There are twenty verses like the above. I 
considered them very happy while I was writ- 
ing them ; now I dare not take the paper from 
my pocket ; it seems to me that I must die of 
shame should I attempt to present them to 
Alice. Time is passing, and I behold the mo- 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 183 

merit close at hand when I shall have to go 
back to the academy without having shown my 
poetry to the object of its inspiration. At last 
I seize my courage in my two hands ; as Alice 
is accompanying me to the shop door I stam- 
mer : 

“ I have something for you here — it’s poetry.” 

And I slip my paper into her hand. SlTe is 
about to open it, but I stop her with a terrified 
look. 

“ No, no ! don’t read them until I’m gone ! ” 
I exclaim, and steal away with a face as red as 
fire. 

All the ensuing week is spent by me in pictur- 
ing to myself Alice unfolding my sheet of En- 
glish paper, and in wondering how she will re- 
ceive my verses. Will she be angry or will she 
smile ? And what face am I to put on the mat- 
ter when I go to see her on Sunday next ? I 
can’t see how I am to withstand the calamity 
should she take it into her head to laugh at me. 

The Sunday, object of my hopes and fears, 
comes at last. With feverish steps I traverse 
the breadth of Paris, I climb Uncle Scipio’s 
staircase with a beating heart, I am admitted — 
and .learn that Alice is from home. She is visit- 
ing one of her girl friends and will not return 
till nightfall. Gloom and dejection forthwith 
replace the fever that was devouring me. I do 
not know what to do with my day, and remain 
the livelong afternoon with my nose over a book 
of which I turn the pages automatically with- 
out understanding the first blessed word. Alice 
returns at the dinner-hour, and my heart begins 


184 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


to beat again . We are alone together in the 
shop, and while she is taking off her hat I man- 
age to gasp in a faltering voice : 

“ Did you read the lines I gave you last Sun- 
day ? ” ' 

‘•'Oh, your verses/’ she replies, raising her 
hands to tie the ribbon of her hair. “ Yes, 
mamma read them to me. I think the3 r are 
real pretty ! ” 

And that is all. She passes without transi- 
tion to another subject and tells me how she 
has spent her day. My bright fancies fade, 
dark shadows descend and fill the shop, and my 
evening ends in bitter disenchantment. Alice 
seems not to have the least idea that the verses 
were composed in her honor. I am beginning 
to suspect that I am nothing more to her than 
an ordinary schoolboy like the rest. She is 
thirteen now, and more than ever the little 
queen who suffered herself to be adored in Vil- 
lotte wood. Her ideal is elsewhere, her aims 
are more exalted ; she is too handsome and 
too ladylike to care for an awkward, ill-clad 
boy. I tell myself these things over and over 
in my despair, but in spite of all I cannot help 
but love her. 

While I am thus sighing, a hopeless lover, 
for the cold, fair one who will not comprehend 
me, while Scipio Mouginot is tramping the 
streets of Paris in quest of his elusive “ vein/’ 
while Oscar Fencherot leads me deeper and 
deeper into the mysterious arcana of his nostol- 
gic poesy, old Father Time is pursuing his re- 
lentless way ; weeks, months glide by and the 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 185 

institute goes jogging on along its humdrum 
road, taking rough and smooth together as 
they come, through ups and downs, through 
weather fair and foul, like an unwieldy van 
that goes lumbering through the country with 
a load of strolling players, changing day by 
day, living from hand td mouth. 

Notwithstanding the money spent in adver- 
tising in the great newspapers the public con- 
tinues to be coy ; it does not come forward and 
bite at the new methods, and the number of 
pupils decreases. Along toward the spring of 
my second year there are but eight of us in the 
big house in the Avenue de Montrouge. The 
discipline of the school is affected, and the va- 
riety of the menus as well. The salmon of our 
days of plenty is replaced by the ignoble cod, 
which we devour disguised by sauces of various 
kinds, and mutton stew, decorated with the 
more euphonious title of “navarin aux pom- 
mes,” alternates too frequently with the salted 
production of the deep. It is only fair to add 
that neither Mme. Cornevin’s good nature nor 
her husband’s abstracted insouciance are per- 
ceptibly changed by these our days of trial. 
The principal seems always to yoost so high 
that the cares and troubles of this sublunary 
existence pass under him unperceived. He has 
faith in his method, and that consoles for all. 
There are times, however, as he has not lost 
all relish for the good things of this world, 
when his face becomes momentarily clouded at 
sight of the inevitable navarin and the too 
persistent codfish a la bechamelle. Mme^Cor- 


186 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


nevin still plays the harp and frizzes her brown 
tresses, but the Thursday soirees have been dis- 
continued, the little drawing-master is seen no 
more about the premises and the concierge, 
more ornamental than useful, who used to be 
such an imposing object in his lodge by the 
great gate, has been discharged. 

Some time after Easter the worthy couple 
take it in their heads to go and install them- 
selves in a country house at Bourg-la-Keine 
that one of their absent friends has placed at 
their disposal, and to carry on the school there 
during the warm months. 

“ It will be wholesome for the boys, working 
in the fresh air,” says Evariste Cornevin. 

But Oscar Fencherot has a shrewd suspicion 
that it was Mme. Cornevin who invented this 
device, in order to escape for the time being the 
demands of some unduly persistent creditors 
among her tradesmen. As this rustic mansion 
is not provided with the furniture necessary for 
a school, the principal’s wife convokes us all one 
fine morning, teachers and scholars, in the great 
recitation-room and there addresses us in the 
following language as near as may be : 

“My friends, in order that we may be sup- 
plied with everything we require when we reach 
the villa, we will take with us this morning two 
benches and a long .table, which we will put on 
top of the cabs that we shall engage to take 
us to Bourg-la-Reine. As the servants have* 
gone on ahead, however,' I am going to ask 
you to lend a hand to get the things as far as 
the sidewalk of the avenue. There we will 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


187 


hail the first vehicles that come along, and 
shall reach our destination down yonder in 
time for breakfast.” 

The proposition is received with great good 
humor, and we apply ourselves to our task with 
a will. Oscar Fencherot and three of the larger 
boys lay hands on the table and carry it out, 
while the smaller lads tackle the two benches ; 
then we all plant ourselves in a row* along the 
sidewalk and await the advent of the cabs. 
Here are two now, coming up the avenue empty 
at a jog trot ; two cabs with a railing around 
the roof, the very thing we want. 

M. Cornevin signals them and they pull up, 
but at sight of the freight, human and other- 
wise, offered them for transportation the}" shake 
their heads, lay the whip across the backs of 
their old nags and drive off with every evidence 
of disapprobation. 

“Let’s push on a little way ahead,” says in- 
sinuating Mme. Cornevin. “ The next we meet 
will be more obliging.” 

Table and benches are lifted to our shoulders 
once again and we descend the avenue proces- 
sionally, the principal and his good lady bring- 
ing up the rear. Other vehicles pass and are 
hailed by Mme. Cornevin in her shrill voice, but 
the cabbies, as soon as the business is explained 
to them, decline the charter in terms more forci- 
ble than polite. 

“ Let’s not give up the ship, my friends ; come 
on ! ” Evariste Cornevin bravely cries. “ All 
comes to them who only wait.” 

Yo, heave ho ! The chattels rise in the air 


188 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


once more and off we start again. The Arcueil 
Gate is left behind us, then the fortifications 
vanish in the distance, and now we are on the 
great Sceaux road, where it would be unreason- 
able to expect to find the cabs as thick as black- 
berries. As we press on the delusive hope of 
encountering a succoring vehicle grows small 
by degrees and beautifully less, but we have 
gone too far to think of retracing our steps 
and returning to the institute, and M. Cornevin 
spurs us on with voice and gesture : 

“ Mactote animo , generosi pueri ! Courage, 
my children ; one brief hour and we shall be 
there ! You shall stop and rest along the 
road, and your appetite for breakfast will be 
all the keener — ” 

We oppose a stout heart to unpropitious 
fortune and continue to journey onward as best 
Ave may. When the band grows weary we set 
the table down on its legs, the benches are 
placed in position alongside of and parallel to 
it, M. and Mme. Cornevin take their place at 
the top, and we seat ourselves below them in 
the shade, for all the world like two rows of 
onions in their bed ; then Oscar Fencherot, to 
beguile our waiting, recites in his cavernous 
voice a limping sonnet or a ballad, while the 
by-passers stop and stare to see a school, mas- 
ters and pupils, sitting under an elm and ges- 
ticulating like maniacs. It is long past mid- 
day when we finally reach the villa of Bourg- 
la-Reine, stiff, footsore and hungry as bears. 

This much-vaunted villa, buried among trees 
and famously dilapidated, is blessed with fear- 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


189 


ful and wonderful arrangements for carrying 
off the water from its roofs. On rainy days 
the humidity makes it like a cistern ; drops of 
water collect and trickle down the walls and 
the floors exhale an odor of mushrodms. But 
that is nothing; at the first ray of returning 
sunshine life there seems very sweet to me. 
I have the most delicious strolls through this 
country that is the paradise of nurserymen, 
which is like an immense fruit and flower gar- 
den with its great fields of roses, strawberries 
and raspberries whose fragrance perfumes the 
air. It brings to my mind memories of home 
and the land of my birth ; the healthy odor of 
growing things, mingled with the appetizing 
smell of ripe fruit, affects me with a mild form 
of intoxication. The only drawback to my 
perfect happiness is that since our arrival 
at Bourg-la-Reine I am without intelligence of 
Alice and my uncle. Scipio Mouginot is too 
busy a man to write or come to see me. He is 
a quarter behind in his payments to the Corne- 
vins, moreover, and is not particularly anxious 
to see them. Alice, doubtless, has plenty of 
other things to think of, and as for me, I have 
not a sou with which to pay my fare to Paris. 
Since our hegira to the country Mme. Cornevin, 
whose province it is to pay over to the boys 
their weekly allowance of pocket-money, has 
quite forgotten me in the hebdomadal distribu- 
tion, and I, knowing that my uncle is her debtor, 
dare not speak to her on the subject. The pro- 
fessorial couple seem to be in no haste to return 
to their domicile in the Avenue de Montrouge. 


190 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


About the first of August, however, word comes 
that the owners of the villa are about to return 
and resume possession of their property, and so 
we finally pack up our belongings and leave for 
town. 

We are hardly more than back and settled 
again in the Avenue de Montrouge than the 
Literary and Scientific Institute is confronted 
with a fresh crisis. The meals become more 
and more scant ; the nice little rolls that used 
to be served with our first breakfast are sup- 
pressed and their place supplied, by no means 
to our satisfaction, with dry bread. During 
our hours of study we can hear through the 
closed doors the vociferations of angry trades- 
men storming and clamoring in the vestibule, 
and one morning, just as we are about to take 
our bowl of warm milk, the dining-room door 
flies open, a sheriff's officer, accompanied by 
two repulsive-looking men, presents himself, 
and, serving a paper on Evariste Cornevin, in- 
forms him that he is come to seize the furni- 
ture. 

The principal’s face becomes white as a sheet 
and he raises his arms heavenward ; Mine. 
Cornevin falls back into her seat in hysterics. 
We all crowd around her, anxious to be of serv- 
ice ; the scene is heart-rending in its desola- 
tion and confusion ; the officer and his myrmi- 
dons, the only ones who are unaffected, impas- 
sibly seat themselves at the table before our 
untasted bowls of milk and proceed to draw up 
the proces-verbal of the seizure. 

When the legal formalities have been com- 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


191 


plied with and the first emotion has subsided, 
M. Cornevan summons us to the parlor and in 
a choking voice informs us that he is compelled 
to dismiss us to our homes : 

“I have stood up and faced the gale of 
adversity as long as I could,” he cries, “but 
the ship is leaking in every seam and I am 
forced to lower the standard of the institute, 
that standard that I have ever borne so high ! 
My children, we will part and wait for happier 
days. Do those of you who live in Paris return 
this very morning to your paternal firesides. 
As for the others, I will communicate with 
those who have their interests in charge.” 

I shake hands with the luckless principal, 
embrace Mine. Cornevin, who is going off int<^ 
another -fit of spasms, then sadly leave the in- 
stitute that is given over to the minions of the 
law. 

Still laboring under the terrible feeling of de- 
pression produced by this unforeseen catastro- 
phe, I make my way rapidly across Paris and 
reach the house 118 Faubourg Saint-Martin in a 
breathless condition. In vain do I knock at 
the shop door ; no one responds. The bales of 
hemp have disappeared, the brass signs on the 
door-posts have been taken down. Deeply dis- 
turbed in mind, I descend the stairs again and 
learn * from the concierge that my uncle, and 
Mme. Saintot as well, have moved. Since July 
15 they have had their residence in the Rue de 
Conde, and Scipio Mouginot, absorbed in his 
complicated business affairs, has forgotten to 
notify me of his change of domicile. 


192 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


CHAPTER XII. 

Thrown as I am by Evariste Cornevin’s fail- 
ure on the tender mercies of Paris without a 
penny in my pocket, I make haste to hunt up 
my uncle at the address given me by the con- 
cierge in the Faubourg Saint-Martin. The Rue 
de Conde is not a long one, and I have no diffi- 
culty in finding the abode of Scipio Mouginot. 
It is a solid old stone mansion, having a spa- 
cious porte-cochere and high windows with 
little old-fashioned panes. The fagade, formal 
and severe in style, h?ts taken on those mellow 
tints that the fog and smoke of Paris impart to 
ancient structures. On the walls of the rez-de- 
chaussee, on each side of the wide entrance, 
great red signs are conspicuously displayed. I 
draw near and read the inscription, painted in 
prominent letters : 

Galleons of Castro Salvage Company. 

Joint-stock Capital : 20 Millions. 

Under the archway, at the entrance of a 
dimly lighted inner court, is a porter’s lodge 
that has the yawning appearance of a cavern. 
On making inquiry there I am duly informed 
that Scipio Mouginot resides on the floor above. 
I climb a monumental stone staircase with a 
wrought-iron handrail and find myself on the 
landing and confronted by a double door cov- 
ered with green baize, above which a marble 
slab repeats in lettering of gold the inscription 
on the signs below : “ Galleons of Castro Sal- 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


193 


vage Company. Administrative Offices.” I 
push open one of the leaves of this imposing- 
looking door and enter an antechamber of vast 
dimensions, floored with marble tiles and fur- 
nished with seats covered with green velvet, 
into which open other doors, also covered with 
green baize, also surmounted by signs in gold 
letters : ^Cashier. — Board Room. — Transfers. 
Manager's Office.” There is an office-boy in 
blue coat and metal buttons seated in a corner 
behind a small table covered with an array of 
documents ; he is reading the last, number of 
the Petit Journal. I step up to him and in- 
quire for M. Scipio Mouginot. The person in 
the tin buttons barely condescends to interrupt 
his reading and answer me, without raising his 
eyes : 

“ M. the manager is in consultation with MM. 
the directors. If you wish to wait for him, take 
a seat.” * 

I sit down on one of the green velvet benches 
facing the door of the “ board-room,” whence 
proceeds a confused murmur of voices, and try 
to impart a little order to my thoughts. All 
that I have seen but now puzzles me and gives 
a violent fillip to my curiosity. So Uncle Scipio 
is the manager of this mysterious company that 
is to save the galleons ? But what under the 
sun may a “galleon ” be ? The word is unknown 
to me and casts no light on my relative’s posi- 
tion. Still, it appears evident to me that be- 
tween these galleons and the vein that Scipio 
Mouginot has been looking for so long and in- 
dustriously there must be a connection of some 


194 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


sort, and judging* by appearances the veiif, if 
he has struck it, must be one of unusual depth 
and richness, for the old mansion in the Rue de 
Conde has a most promising air ; it is not the 
least bit like the poor entresol of the faubourg, 
and the twenty millions of capital mentioned on 
the red signboards at the entrance tell of a 
business slightly different from that of selling 
Vosges linen. And so my uncle is at last on the 
high road to fortune ! I rejoice most sincerely, 
for my own sake as well as for that of Mme. 
Clemence and little Alice. I wonder whether 
or not those ladies have apartments in the man- 
sion. I would ask the office-boy about it if I 
dared, but he is deep in his newspaper once 
more and appears so uncommunicative that I 
have not the courage to disturb him. 

While I am revolving these considerations in 
my head a good half-hour has elapsed, and be- 
hind the tight-closed door of the board-room 
the same voices are buzzing away as busily as 
ever. It is going on noon; the empty jcondi- 
tion of my stomach makes me nervous and un- 
easy. I have a creepy sensation in my legs, 
my fingers drum involuntarily on the velvet 
seat of the bench. I count the panels in the 
woodwork, the tiles of the floor, and do my best 
to repress the yawns that are due as well to 
my mental anxiety as to the pangs of hunger. 
I am nearly at tire end of my patience when at 
last the board-room door turns on its hinges, 
the voices sound louder and more distinctly, 
the office-boy hurriedly thrusts his newspaper 
into his desk and rises to his feet, and all at 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


195 


once I am conscious of a band of five or six 
well-dressed gentlemen coming out, among 
whom I recognize Scipio Mouginot — but not the 
same Scipio that I saw last. This is a Scipio 
in whom prosperity has wrought a wondrous 
transformation, a restored, rejuvenated Scipio, 
with smooth, clean-shaven face, his manly 
form incased in an elegant black frock of styl- 
ish cut, and carrying under his arm a sumptu- 
ous portfolio of Russia leather that would not 
shame a minister of state. I am so utterly 
dumfounded and flabbergasted that I have 
not voice to make my presence known, but my 
uncle’s piercing eye has descried me. He 
makes me a little patronizing gesture with his 
hand and keeps on conversing animatedly with 
the gentlemen of the board, most of whom 
wear gay-colored rosettes. The office-boy 
throws back both leaves of the outer door, 
there is a great deal of handshaking, and the 
directors vanish in the darkness of the corridor. 
Then my uncle comes to me, lays his hand 
affectionately on my shoulder, and in his clarion 
voice exclaims : 

“How are you, Jacques? I was just on the 
point of writing to you. Come into my private 
office ; we have much to say to each other.” 

He turns to the office-boy and says per- 
emptorily : 

“ Ganivet, if anybody asks for me I am not 
in. Tell Baptiste to lay an additional cover ; 
my nephew will breakfast with me.” 

While giving these directions he pushes me 
before him into his office, a high-ceiled apart- 


196 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


ment, its walls covered with a fuzzy green 
paper, furnished with a great desk in ebony, a 
bookcase and luxurious easy-chairs covered 
with antique tapestry. On the wall I behold a 
reproduction of the red sign that greeted my 
eyes at the door downstairs, and beyond a map 
representing a mountainous region with shores 
bathed by an azure sea fills an entire panel. 
On the mantelshelf the ornamental clock is 
flanked on each side bj^ velvet mats on which 
rest queer-looking bronze objects, eaten by 
verdigris and incrusted with sea-shells. 

“ Well ! ” my uncle cries in a tone of tri- 
umph, throwing down upon the desk his fine 
Russia leather portfolio, ee well, Jacques ! I 
have struck the vein at last and our fortune’s 
made. You will be none the worse for it, my 
boy, and I am going to remove you at once 
from the institute, where you are only taught 
theoretical knowledge, and launch you on the 
sea of practical life.” 

“ That happens very opportunely, uncle,” I 
sorrowfully reply, “ for the institute closed its 
doors this morning and we were all sent home 
to our families.” 

“ You don’t tell me so ! ” 

I proceed to relate the story of Cornevin’s 
downfall, and describe the lamentable scene of 
the seizure, but he scarcely listens to me. 

“ Ah, indeed,” he murmurs, absently; “ poor 
Cornevin ! Such is life, Jacques — a perpetual 
revolution of the wheel of Fortune ; a furious 
conflict, where the weak go to the wall, where the 
strong come out victorious.— But let us speak 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


197 


of more important matters. Reckoning* from 
to-day you are in my employ as secretary ; 
your salary will.be one hundred and fifty francs 
a month, with board and lodging added.” 

I am not a little shocked by the philosophic 
indifference with which Scipio Mouginot re- 
ceives the tidings of his good friend Cornevin’s 
disaster, but I consider it the part of prudence 
to keep my reflections to myself, and merely 
ask in what my secretarial functions will con- 
sist. 

“You will open my mail,” he replies, “and 
write letters from my dictation. That will 
serve to give you an insight into the business, 
and you will be^gradually acquainting yourself 
with the mechanism of the great Castro Gal- 
leons Salvage Company.” 

First and foremost I beg Scipio Mouginot to 
tell me what the galleons are. 

“What!” he exclaims, “is it possible you 
have never heard tell of the famous galleons 
of Castro ? But after all the great majority of 
people are in the same boat, and it is even to the 
universal prevalence of that dense ignorance 
that I am indebted for the success of my idea. 
Listen, then, my boy, for it is a wondrous story, 
as interesting as a fairy tale. You must know, 
in the first place, that these galleons were ves- 
sels fitted out by the kings of Spain and dis- 
patched to America and the Antilles to collect 
the immense wealth that the discovery of the 
Isew World had placed at the disposal of the 
Spaniards. The galleons, the number of which 
was twelve, in honor of the twelve apostles, 


198 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


used to bring over to Seville and Cadiz the 
royal treasure in ingots and coined money ; in 
this way each of these vessels would annually 
bring to Europe the value of ten or twelve mill- 
ions in specie. Now it so fell out that in 1707, 
in the Bay of Castro, the combined English and 
Dutch fleets encountered the Spanish fleet, v T hich 
was conveying a number of vessels with cargoes 
of gold and gems; a sanguinary combat fol- 
lowed, which resulted in the destruction of the 
Spanish warships. In an instant, in the twink- 
ling of an eye, the galleons, with their freight 
of ingots, precious stones, piastres and doub- 
loons, were sunk in the waters of the bay, 
which at that point is nearly two leagues deep, 
and there they have remained ever since. It 
was about a month ago, in one of my hours of 
idleness, that my attention was attracted to 
this very thrilling narrative — and right here, 
Jacques, I want you to note the difference there 
is between one of your common, plodding in- 
tellects and a far-reaching mind that grasps 
great ideas and makes them its own by intui- 
tion, as it were ! Others before me had read 
the story of the naval conflict off'Castro and 
seen nothing particularly noteworthy in it ; 
but your old uncle has the genuine commercial 
instinct which is never at fault. A luminous 
idea suddenly flashed across my mind, and 
like Archimedes I cried : ‘ Eureka ! 5 I had, in 
very truth, struck a vein of marvelous rich- 
ness, a veritable gold mine. For mark this, 
my boy : in the eighteenth century our knowl- 
edge of marine mechanics was in its infancy 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


199 


and no one for an instant dreamed of such a 
thing- as divers going- down two leagues below 
the surface to wrest a fortune from the em- 
brace of Ocean, but to-day the case is entirely 
different ; our improved submarine armor per- 
mits man to explore at leisure the depths at 
the bottom of the sea. I communicated m3 r 
idea to some bold capitalists, they grasped it, 
and our companj" was formed. What prelim- 
inary explorations we have made so far have 
been successful and assure us that the galleons 
are still slumbering at the bottom of the bay. 
There they are ! ” Scipio exultingly continues, 
leading me forward to the map and pointing 
to five or six small red crosses marked on the 
blue expanse of the sea. “ Intrepid men have 
gone down into the deepest depths of the Bay of 
Castro, they have seen the galleons, Jacques, 
they have touched them with their hand ! and 
the evidence they have brought back of their 
existence is irrefutable — ” 

“ They brought back ingots of pure gold ! ” 
I cannot help exclaiming-, my eyes distended to 
the size of saucers. 

“ No, not exactly,” replies my uncle, “ but 
they brought back these cannon-balls incrusted 
with shells. Look here, 1113^ lad,” he adds, tak- 
ing from the mantelshelf one of the strange- 
looking bronze objects that lie there on their 
velvet mats, “ this bit of metal was taken from 
the hull of one of the vessels that lie sunken in 
the ba3^, and if a human hand could tear it 
from its resting-place, other determined hands 
will not be wanting to ravish from the waves 


200 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


the untold wealth that has lain buried there for 
more, than a hundred and fifty years. Reflect 
a moment on that mass of gold and precious 
substances ! There were twelve galleons, each 
with a freight on board valued at twelve mill- 
ions ; that makes, at a low estimate, one hun- 
dred and forty-four millions that will all go 
into the pockets of our shareholders.” 

While Uncle Scipio is speaking thus his eyes 
glitter with a strange, golden light, his hands 
tremble and make involuntary movements, as 
if scooping up great heaps of piastres and 
doubloons, and I, also, unable to resist the fas- 
cination of this extraordinary man, it seems to 
me that I can hear the pleasant chink of gold 
and silver ringing in my ears. I am dazzled, 
magnetized, and eye him with something 
approaching veneration while he continues : 

“ Of course the working expenses will amount 
to a round sum, but for all that we shall be 
safe in putting the net profits down at a hun- 
dred millions. We. shall explain all this to the 
public through the medium of the newspapers, 
and the public, which can see through a mill- 
stone as readily as any private individual when 
there is a prospect of making money, the public, 
I say, will comprehend. It won’t be long be- 
fore capital will be flowing in on us ; our shares 
will command a premium on the Exchange, and 
then you and I will start together for the Bay 
of Castro to be present at the exhumation of 
those treasures that for more than a century 
and a half have been withdrawn from the 
world’s circulation. And in the meantime, 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


201 


Jacques, we’ll go to breakfast ; it is noon and 
Baptiste must be getting impatient.” 

He rises in his quick, impulsive way, and I 
follow him to the dining-room, which adjoins 
the office. 

In the middle of this apartment, which has 
for its decorations various objects in brass and 
bronze and ancient potter\ r , whose bright colors 
are relieved against a dark wall-paper repre- 
senting Flemish forest scenes, two covers are 
laid on a long, wide table about which Baptiste, 
in a red and white striped waistcoat, is hover- 
ing with a busy air. This Baptiste, who is a 
little older than I, and whose cunning, wide- 
awake phiz is not entirely unknown to me, can- 
not refrain from giving a grin of surprise on 
seeing me enter the room arm-in-arm with my 
uncle. As for me, the more I look at him the 
more assured I feel that I have fallen in with 
an old acquaintance. There comes a moment 
when the light from the window falls full on 
the man’s face. I hesitate no longer, and 
looking him full in the e}^e, exclaim : 

“ Guigne-a-Gouche ! ” 

“ What, you here, Jacques !” rejoins my 
quondam comrade as he hands me the hors- 
d’oeuvres. “ What a jolty lark ! ” 

“ What’s that ? ” my uncle sharply interjects 
with a frown. 

Baptiste vanishes silently to go to the kitchen 
for another dish, and while he is gone I inform 
Scipio Mouginot that his valet is none other than 
one of my old schoolmates at Pestel’s establish- 


202 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


ment. The manager of the Castro Galleons 
Salvage Company does not seem to be over- 
joyed by the coincidence. 

“The dog never told me he was from Villotte,” 
he growls, “ but the fact of his being a country- 
man of yours is no excuse for being disrespect- 
fully familiar. Remember that you are my sec- 
retary and that it won’t answer to put yourself 
on a level with common trash.” 

And when Guigne-a-Gouche reappears, bring- 
ing in a fillet Chateaubriand with fried potatoes, 
Scipio Mouginot turns to him with an air of 
great majesty and says in cutting tones : 

“ Baptiste, you are in my service, and I have 
promised, if you are faithful, to present you 
with a share of the company’s stock. I am in- 
formed that in childhood you had some ac- 
quaintance with M. Jacques Mouginot, now 
present in this room, but that is no reason why 
you should be wanting in the deference that is 
due from you to my nephew and my secretary. 
Bear this in mind ; if you fail to treat him with 
proper respect, the very first time I hear of it 
I will give you your week’s notice and you will 
lose your share in the profits of the company. 
Now fill our glasses for us.” 

Guigne-a-Gouche bows with feigned humility 
and hastens to comply with the injunction of 
my uncle. When he is changing my plate or 
handing me a dish he is careful always to ad- 
dress me in the third person, but when he says : 
“Will monsieur have another slice of the fillet ?” 
or “Will monsieur take Bordeaux or Burgun- 
dy ? ” he managesAo infuse into his tone such 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


203 


an expression of impudent hauteur that I am 
tempted to box his ears. 

The manager of the Salvage Company lives 
well : there are scrambled eggs with truffles, 
a terrine of potted game, chicken livers en bro- 
chette, with white Bordeaux and red Burgundy 
to wash these good things down. The hill of 
fare seems to me none the less exquisite and 
bounteous that during the past week I have 
been condemned to a regimen of Italian cheese 
and codfish a la becliamelle. Scipio Mouginot, 
who has always had a weakness for good living, 
lingers lovingly over each dish and never ceases 
to make play with his knife and fork except to 
give me some fresh bit of information about his 
stupendous enterprise. What surprises me is 
that he has not opened his mouth to give me 
news of Mme. Clemence and Alice ; at dessert, 
accordingly, when Baptiste Guigne-a-Gouche is 
no longer in the room, I take advantage of his 
absence to lead the conversation around to the 
subject of the Saintot ladies. 

“ How are Mme. Clemence and Alice, uncle ?” 

ct Oh, they are very well,” he replies as he 
peels his peach. 

“ Do they live near here ? ” 

“ They live upstairs in the hotel, on the sec- 
ond floor, and you will have an opportunity to 
see them this evening. I will send Baptiste up 
to ask them to dine with us.” 

“If you don’t object I will go myself and 
give them your invitation.” 

“ It would be useless ; you would not find 


204 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


them at home. They are both out, attending 1 to 
the duties of their occupation.” 

I look at my uncle with amazement. Can it 
be that those ladies are obliged to go out to 
earn their living ? How is it that Scipio Mou- 
ginot, who benefited in days of yore by the 
Vosges linen business, has not made his former 
partners sharers in his present prosperity ? He 
reads my astonishment on my mobile face and 
goes on to say : 

“ Mine. Saintot, Jacques, is a fair specimen 
of feminine obstinacy and pusillanimity. You 
saw with what superhuman courage and resig- 
nation she struggled against adversity in our 
evil days ; well, you would hardly believe it, 
but soon as Fortune began to smile on us she 
showed the white feather. That’s the way with 
all women, my dear boy ; they are very brave 
as long as they can feel the solid ground under 
their feet, but incapable of spreading their wings 
and soaring in grander, more majestic flight. 
They are deficient in daring and wing-power. 
Think of it once, Mme. Clemence has doubts 
about the future of the company ! As a mat- 
ter of course, my very first thought was to do 
something in acknowledgment of the support 
and assistance rendered me bj^ that valiant 
woman. I gave her ten shares of Salvage 
Company stock, which, issued at a nominal par 
of two thousand francs, will appreciate in value 
threefold soon as it is listed on the Bourse, thus 
giving her a nice little capital of sixty thousand 
francs. But the blindness of my poor friend is 
unfortunately so great that when she had set- 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


205 


tied up the affairs of her little business I could 
not persuade her to listen to my advice. She 
insisted on taking a cashier’s place in the dress- 
making establishment where she had put her 
daughter as apprentice. The utmost I could 
prevail on Mme. Clemen ce to do was to accept 
an apartment in my house. The shop closes at 
seven o’clock, and the ladies will be here by 
eight. Our dinner will be delayed somewhat, 
but we can afford to put up with that incon- 
venience for their sake.” 

Promptly at eight o’clock, as if to sustain my 
uncle’s reputation for veracity, the ladies make 
their appearance and are received in the di- 
rector’s room by Scipio with the warmest dem- 
onstrations of affection. Mme. Clemence still 
wears the same grave, sweet face, illuminated 
from time to time by a sad smile. As for 
Alice, although she is barely fifteen, she is a ver- 
itable little woman in manner and appearance. 
She is much taller ; she has put on long dresses, 
which make her fragile form look still more 
slender. With her white, virginal face, she re- 
minds one somehow of a lily, swaying to the 
wind at the end of its long, flexile stem. Her 
hair no longer falls in waves upon her shoul- 
ders ; she wears it arranged in a modest chig- 
non that covers the back of the neck and in 
smooth bandeaux over the temples, which adds 
to the lofty expression of her features a purity 
almost mystical. It seems to me that the con- 
finement of the room where she works all day 
long cannot be very good for her ; she is cer- 
tainly much thinner than she used to be, and 


206 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


her great brown eyes have a strange brilliancy 
which makes them appear larger than they 
are, while under the lower lids are tell-tale pur- 
plish circles, and her contralto voice sounds 
hoarsely, as if there were in the young girl’s 
throat some obstinate affection impairing the 
flexibility of the vocal cords. 

Mme. Clemence receives me with her usual 
kindness ; Alice’s welcome is colder and more 
reserved. Her manner has in it something of 
indifference, of impassiveness, that I have 
never noticed there before. She maintains a 
sort of maidenly reclusion, as if she would 
check every attempt at familiarity and say to 
those who come near her: “ Touch me not.” 
She seems to be trying to build up a wall about 
her personality, and to dread being brought in 
contact with the thoughts and personality of 
others. Speak to her and she listens, but she 
has the air of being a hundred leagues away. 
It is quite true that since the failure of my 
declaration in verse I have not flattered m} r self 
with hopes of gaining' Alice’s affection, but I 
love her still, and feel the sting of jealousy in 
witnessing her coldness ; I argue to myself 
that if she does not think of me it is probably 
because she thinks too much of some one else. 

These jealous imaginings dash the pleasure I 
should otherwise receive from the prodigious 
success of my uncle’s undertaking. Gladly 
would I give all the doubloons and piastres in 
the galleons, were they mine to give, if by so 
doing I might recover the little Alice of by- 
gone days. These considerations, however, do 


MY UNCLE SCIP10. 207 

not prevent me from devoting’ myself heart and 
soul to my new duties, which, by the way, are 
neither very laborious nor very confining. 
When I have opened my uncle’s mail I sit down 
at his desk and write out from his dictation 
advertisements that are to see the light in the 
columns of the newspapers and circulars which 
we send off to men of mark in Paris and the 
provinces, whose names we discover by hunt- 
ing through Bottin’s Directory. Scipio Mougi- 
not does not overlook the good folks of Vil- 
lotte ; he could not endure that the city of his 
birth should not be acquainted with the opu- 
lence and brilliancy of promise that reside in 
the newly discovered “vein.” He not only 
bombards the Mouginot-Pechoins and the Mou- 
ginot-Tupins with prospectuses, but he even 
sends them to Cousin Delorme. As I inclose 
the circular intended for the paper mill I can- 
not help thinking how ungrateful I have proved 
toward my kind friends at Jeand’heurs, to 
whom I have not written in upward of a year, 
and I breathe a remorseful sigh into the De- 
lorme’s envelope as I close the flap. I think of 
them one whole day, but the night brings Alice 
back once more to the Rue de Conde, and then 
my thoughts are all of her. All my evenings, 
or nearly all, are spent in company with the 
Saintot ladies, while my uncle is running here 
and there to keep his business appointments. 
As a result of my assiduity and close friend- 
ship with Mme. Clemence I ascertain that my 
jealousy is groundless and that I have no other 
rival in Alice’s heart than God. My little 


208 


MY UNCLE £CIPIO. 


friend is of late become very pious. She has 
ceased to care for the theater and refuses to 
accept the box that Scipio Mouginot occasion- 
ally offers us ; she never opens a novel now, 
and her habitual reading is the “ Lives of the 
Saints ” and the “ Imitation In her moments 
of religious exaltation she seems no longer to 
have eyes for the things of this world ; her feet 
are lifted off the earth, and she appears as if 
about to wing her flight aloft to join the Dom- 
inations and the Seraphim. It is this intensity 
of devotion that gives her an appearance of in- 
difference and reserve ; this it is that gives her 
that beautjr, mystical as a white blossom’s, 
which, while doubling my admiration, fills my 
heart with sadness. 

Six months speed by without bringing any 
change in our situation worthy to be men- 
tioned. From time to time my uncle has the 
pleasure of adding a new name to his list of 
shareholders, but at no time does the window 
labeled “ transfers ” witness a crowd in front 
of it fighting to obtain possession of our shares. 
The requisite preliminary work is going on at 
the Bay of Castro ; the divers have again ex- 
plored the bottom of the Atlantic, and this 
time have feasted their eyes on the treasures 
of the galleons; all that is now left to do is 
to construct machinery of sufficient power to 
pump out the submerged hulls, and then bring 
to landThe wealth that has so long lain buried 
in the depths of the ocean. At least that is 
what we keep repeating in the articles that the 
newspapers publish in their columns and for 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


209 


which we pay them a great deal of our spare 
cash. My uncle composes these articles in the 
persuasive and picturesque style that he excels 
in, and — strange to relate— when he runs his 
eye over his lucubrations, fresh from the print- 
ing press, is the first one to be taken in by them 
and imagines that everything has happened just 
as stated. 

“ You see how it is, Jacques,” he says, throw- 
ing down the newspaper from which he has been 
magniloquent ly declaiming, “ the truth is begin- 
ning to come out, people are commencing to 
give me the credit I am entitled to and the 
Press is taking up the subject of the galleons. 
Things are moving ! things are moving ! ” 

Our time is spent in poring over the public 
journals and discussing their contents. Gani- 
vet, the office-boy, devotes himself more as- 
siduously than ever to the Petit Journal . 
Guigne-a-Gouche, otherwise known as Bap- 
tiste, scarcely removes his eyes from the 
printed list of stock quotations ; he carries 
it about with him in his pocket and consults 
it when he should be dusting the furniture. 
As he is of an extremely practical turn of 
mind, however, and does not believe in wind 
as a medium of exchange, he fumes and frets, 
shakes his head disapprovingly, and when he 
catches me alone in the director’s room makes 
no bones of “giving me a piece of his mind.” 

“Oh, come now, Jacques,” he grumbles, 
“ain’t they listed yet, those famous shares 
of yours ? Your uncle promised to give me 
a part interest for my wages, but it won’t 


210 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


do for him to bambooze me too long-, because 
I will g-ive him as good as he sends, I will ! 
I ain’t the sort to be gammoned, I ain’t ! ” 

Scipio Mouginot’s voice is suddenly heard 
outside in the antechamber ; then Guigne-a- 
Gouclie, resuming his usual sanctimonious air, 
inquires in a whining voice : 

“ Did you ring, Monsieur Jacques P ” 

It would not take much to induce me to give 
him a good kicking. 

At last one evening, while Mme. Clemence, 
Alice and I are together upstairs in the hotel, 
and about to take a cup of tea, the door flies 
open with a bang and we behold before us Scipio 
Mouginot, bareheaded, hair flying in the wind, 
eyes sparkling, a smile of triumph on his lips. 

“ My friends,” he shouts, waving a newspa- 
per above his head, “ my children, victory, vic- 
tory ! They are listed ! ” 

With a magnificent movement he holds out 
to us the official list of the Bourse, and pointing 
to a line in the column headed Sales for the Ac- 
count, reads it to us as if it were a proclama- 
tion : 

“ f Galleons of Castro, 2001 francs.’ They 
are listed, and up a franc already ! Let us em- 
brace all around ! Baptiste, bring up some 
champagne ! ” 

We all join in a general embrace. Alice her- 
self, notwithstanding her religious inclinations, 
shares in our profane rejoicing. Scipio, his pa- 
per in his hand, dances about the room like a 
child ; Mme. Clemence sheds tears of joy ; I 
profit by the occasion to surreptitiously hug my 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


211 


little friend, and for a few fleeting moments 
perfect happiness reigns in the old house of the 
Rue de Conde. 


CHAPTER XIII. 

Rather more than a month has passed since 
our shares were listed, and within that brief 
period our enthusiasm has received a set-back. 
The advance of a franc that filled Scipio Mou- 
ginot with such pride and happiness did not 
hold ; the price gave way and in less than a 
week the stock tumbled from two thousand to 
one thousand eight hundred francs. But my 
uncle’s confidence did not decline with the price 
of the shares. 

While we are engaged in the silent inner 
office one afternoon, he and I, in framing a new 
advertisement intended to arouse the slumber- 
ing interest of the public, Ganivet softly opens 
the door and presents to Scipio a card on a 
metal salver. He says that the owner of the 
card would like to know if M. the manager can 
see him. 

“Of course, of course,” replies my uncle; 
“ show him in.” 

Ganivet retires and presently returns escort- 
ing two visitors, in whom I recognize M. De- 
lorme and Zelie. An exclamation of surprise 
and delight escapes me ; I hug my good cousin 
and give Zelie a kiss, and Scipio Mouginot, for 
his part, assumes his most gracious air and ex- 
tends his hands to the newcomers. 

. Delighted to see you, my dear compatri- 


212 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


ots ! ” he exclaims, “ most happy to have it in 
my power to thank you for all your kindness to 
my nephew Jacques ! What good wind brings 
you to Paris ? ” 

“ Mon Dieu, the matter is simple enough, ” 
replies Cousin Delorme ; “ I have always prom- 
ised Zelie that when she was fifteen I would 
give her a glimpse of Paris ; I had business in 
the capital, and took advantage of the circum- 
stance to bring my little girl along with me.” 

They have taken their seats, and my eyes 
dwell with pleasure on the good, honest folks 
from Jeand’heurs, who seem to have brought 
into the room with them a whiff of the air and 
savor of my birthplace. Everything about 
them exhales an undisguised odor of the fields : 
their honest, candid faces, their bronzed com- 
plexions, their somewhat rustic manners, even 
their serviceable Sunday suits, so evidently of 
home manufacture. Zelie has grown ; she is 
now a buxom, well-developed girl and looks 
older even than she is. It cannot be said that 
she is pretty — her irregular features are too 
prominent, her cheeks* are brown as a berry 
where the sun has kissed them, her chestnut 
hair is unbecomingly arranged — but for all a 
village seamstress has made her gown, she has 
a nice figure, her eyes are limpid as a crystal 
spring’, her teeth are dazzlingly white. Taken 
altogether she gives one an impression of some- 
thing wholesome, intelligent and strong. Look- 
ing at her, one feels somewhat as he does when 
contemplating a field of wheat lying in the 
golden sunshine, where blue corn-flowers and 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


213 


scarlet poppies add touches of vivid color and 
whence rises a salubrious odor of ripe grain. 

“ You did well to bring this charming young- 
lady to Paris,” Uncle Scipio goes on, bestow- 
ing on Zelie one of his most seductive smiles. 
“ I suppose she is fond of sight-seeing, and I 
hope I may be able to be of service to her in 
that respect. I occasionally have a box at my 
disposal at the principal theaters, and I shall be 
pleased if you will avail yourselves of it.” 

“ Faith, I’m not the man to say you nay,” 
replies Cousin Delorme with cheerful frankness, 
“ for theater tickets here come high, and as^-for 
your money, presto ! it vanishes almost before 
you can get your porte-monnaie out of your 
pocket.” 

“ Yes, we spend a great deal of money here 
at Paris, but then on the other hand we work 
hard and make a great deal. That is, just 
what I and my nephew are doing now,” adds 
my uncle, who never lets slip an opportunity 
of puffing his great scheme. “ No doubt you 
have heard of the galleons of Castro ? ” 

“I read the prospectus that you were so 
obliging as to send me.” 

“ Well, you are a man competent to judge ; 
what do you think of it ? A promising venture 
and a glorious enterprise, is it not ? Our shares 
are a safe investment, the security is absolute, 
and they will ultimately pay splendid divi- 
dends.” 

“That is very possible,” captiously observes 
M. Delorme, “provided you first succeed in 
finding the Spanish doubloons at the bottom of 


214 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


the sea and then are able to bring- them safe to 
land, but your expenses in accomplishing that 
will be enormous, while the profits, for the 
present, at least, are purely speculation.” 

“Your remarks are not devoid of justice,” 
my uncle rejoins, “but we are in a position to 
refute them. I will pledge myself in less than 
an hour’s time to go to the very root of the 
question with you and convince you of the 
practicability of the enterprise. My time is 
not my own to-day, unfortunately; but come 
and dine with us some day and we will talk 
the matter over at our leisure. We have a 
friend here in the house — a lady-— whose daugh- 
ter is of the same age as yours and who will 
be happy to be of service to Miss Zelie. Let’s 
see, now ; day after to-morrow will be Sunday. 
Will you come to us that afternoon ? We will 
have a plain family dinner and take the chil- 
dren to the show afterward.” 

M. Delorme gives his assent, and it is agreed 
that we are to meet again on the com- 
ing Sunday. I accompany my friends from 
Jeand’heurs to the foot of the stairs, where 
Zelie and I exchange a few words together, the 
cousin having gone on ahead. 

“I am glad to have seen you again,” says 
she; “you have blossomed out into a regular 
Parisian. Do you like the life here ? ” 

“ Why, yes, my dear cousin, and you would 
like it, too, I am certain.” 

“ I don’t think it. The noise deafens me, my 
head whirls whenever I go out upon the street, 
and I am homesick already.” 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


215 


“ That’s the way everybody feels for the first 
few days, but you will change your mind on 
Sunday when we go to the theater, and then 
you will have a chance to see how pretty Alice 
is.” 

“ Alice ? ” — oh, yes, I remember ; your little 
queen of the woods down there at Villotte,” she 
replies, and her blue eyes give me a melancholy 
look. “ I have a feeling that she won’t like me, 
but for all that I shall be glad to make her ac- 
quaintance. Till Sunday, Jacques ! ” 

“ Till Sunday, Zelie ! ” 

Cousin Delorme has halted at the entrance, 
where he is running his eye over the great red 
sign. While thus occupied the expression of his 
face appears to be one of contempt rather than 
of enthusiastic conviction. When he has reached 
the end.of his reading he lays his hand affec- 
tionately on my shoulder and says : 

“ Are you also a believer in the galleons ? ” 

“ Why, of course I am, Cousin Delorme.” 

“ Well, well, my lad, so much the better ! ” 
he exclaims in a tone of pitying irony ; “ it is a 
good thing to have faith — ” 

We shake hands, and I follow father and 
daughter with wistful glances for yet a little 
while as they vanish in the direction of the Car- 
ref our de l’Odeon. 

The old house in the Hue de Conde sees them 
within its walls again on the Sunday afternoon, 
according to promise. M. Delorme’s air and 
manner lead me to believe that he is already 
tired of leading an idle and nomadic life ; he is 
suffering from lack of occupation, from the nos- 


21G 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


talgia that Paris inevitably- induces in its coun- 
try visitors. The ceaseless stir and bustle of his 
hotel destroy his sleep, the fare of the restaurant 
deranges his stomach, the uproar of the unfeel- 
ing, indifferent crowd saddens and wearies him. 
Even Zelie seems to have lost her accustomed 
liveliness and good-humor ; she is shy and ill 
at ease ; one would say she was ashamed of the 
countrified appearance she makes in her ill- 
fitting dress and hat bedecked with gaudy 
flowers. More than likely she has been looking 
in the windows of the great dry -goods shops 
and examining the toilettes of the fine ladies 
she has met, whence her feminine instincts 
have told her she was a fright and her womanly 
vanity has suffered accordingly. It is a fact 
that when the Saintot ladies come down to din- 
ner and I behold Alice and my cousin side by 
side, I cannot help making comparisons which 
are not favorable to the latter. The simplicity, 
harmony and good taste that characterize Mile. 
Saintot’s appearance are in striking contrast 
with the old-fashioned and inelegant attire of 
the little country girl, with the loud and ill-sorted 
colors of her costume. Seen beside Alice’s 
interesting pallor and refined features, Zelie ’s 
sunburnt face and ruggedly healthy form have 
something coarse and vulgar in them. I have 
this difference staring me in the face all through 
dinner, and am affected disagreeably by it. My 
cousin probably reads my thoughts in my face, 
for she becomes more and more shy and silent ; 
she scarcely responds to Alice’s advances and 
gives no attention at ail to the eloquent dis- 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 217 

course that Scipio Mouginot addresses to M. 
Delorme to convince him of the exceptional ben- 
efits that must accrue to those who invest their 
money in Castro Salvage shares. 

On rising from table we leave the house for 
the theater. My uncle, who has it at heart 
to impress his friends from the country with 
an idea of his magnificence, has secured places 
at the opera, where they are to play “ The Hu- 
guenots/’ As Mme. Clemence has declined to 
be of the company, there are five of us in the 
second tier box, the two young ladies in front 
and we masculines in the semi-darkness of the 
rear. Cousin Delorme, who is uncomfortably 
warm and can make nothing of the libretto, 
fails asleep on his chair at the beginning of the 
second act. Zelie, too, notwithstanding Alice’s 
laconic explanations, does not appear greatly 
interested in the piece ; the lights hurt her 
eyes, the orchestra deafens her with its din, 
and then she wmuld seem to have some secret 
trouble of her own of too absorbing a nature to 
let her sympathize with the woes of luckless 
Raoul and Valentine. M. Delorme awakes with 
a start at the discharge of musketry in the last 
act and the screams of the Huguenots who are 
being murdered in the church. We leave the 
building, and once dut on the boulevard hail a 
cab for Zelie and her father, to whom I promise 
a visit early in the morning. 

Among the first things I do on the following 
day, consequently, is to run off to the Rue Coquil- 
liere to hunt up the Delormes at their hotel. 
Almost the first person I set eyes on upon 


218 MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 

i 

entering 1 the office is my cousin, in deep con- 
ference with the female manager. 

“ Good-morning, Jacques,” says he, “I am 
just settling my hill — I have seen all I want to 
see of Paris, and we’re off bj^ the midday train. 
Do you go up to No. 45, though ; you’ll find Zelie 
there. I will he with you in a few minutes.” 

I climh the stairs, I succeed in finding No. 45 
at the bottom of a long passageway, and Zelie 
in person opens the door in response to my 
knock. She has her traveling dress on and is 
in process of strapping the trunk that serves 
in common her and her father. Her blue eyes 
are illumined by a fugitive light on seeing me, 
which is quenched almost instantly by a gath- 
ering moisture, suspiciously like tears. 

“What an early bird you are, cousin!” I 
say to her as I take her hand . “ Don’t you feel 

tired after being out so late ? I am afraid you 
did not find ‘The Huguenots’ very amusing.” 

“To tell the truth, I did not understand it 
very well,” she replies ; “it is too deep for me. 
There can be no doubt of it, I am too thick- 
headed to enjoy life at Paris.” 

“ So you are going to leave us ? ” 

“ Yes ; I would have liked well enough to re- 
main a few days longer, for I have hardly had 
a chance to speak to you. But in the first place 
you are verj^ busy, and then I can see that papa 
wants to get home, and it is my duty not to 
oppose him.” 

She turns away her head and bends over the 
trunk again. There is silence between us for a 
moment, which I am the first to break : 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


219 


“ Well, 3 r ou have seen Alice. What do you 
think of her ? ” 

“She is very pretty,” she briefly answers. 
“You have not overpraised her.” 

She §ighs, kneels before the trunk, and fin- 
ishes strapping- it. 

“ Don't you think she has a Madonna face ? ” 

“ 1 do not know just what Madonna's may be 
like,” my cousin returns in a rather pettish 
tone, “but there is certainly something strange 
in her appearance. After all, though, that 
doubtless arises from her state of health.” 

“ Her state of health ? ” I exclaim. “ Do 
you think that — ? ” 

I think she is not very strong,” Zelie replies, 
“ and has something the matter with her chest.” 

Cousin Delorme’s entrance interrupts the 
conversation ; he is crumpling the hotel bill 
nervously between his fingers. 

“Your Parisian innkeepers,” he cries, “are 
even greater robbers than ours ! Six francs a 
day for two little rooms where we couldn't get 
a wink of sleep — it is abominable ! . It will be a 
frigid day when you catch me here again. We 
shall sleep at Jeand’heurs to-night, though, 
and I for one shall not be sorry. Come now, 
Jacques, tell the truth, aren’t you tired of this 
life, and don’t your heart tell you to quit it and 
return with us ? There is always a room for 
you at the paper mill, you know.” 

“Thank you, Cousin Delorme, but you must, 
remember that I am my uncle’s secretary. And 
really I cannot bring myself to abandon a 
career that affords such brilliant promise.” 


220 


MY XJNCLE SCIPIO. 


“Oh, of course, ” he replies, ironically ; “I 
had forgot that you have galleons on the brain. 
And you, too, have hopes of clearing your little 
million out of this company which is founded on 
nothing more substantial than sea fog ! My 
poor boy, you have got to learn that all that 
glitters is not gold ; your hopes will vanish in 
smoke.’ ’ 

“You cannot deny that the company exists, 
however. It has splendid quarters, capital, a 
board of directors — ” 

“Yes, 'yes; plenty of bluff, and nothing be- 
hind. When the cash receipts are all spent the 
board of directors will make the stock- 
holders a polite bow and tell them to go 
whistle, and then your uncle will find things 
growing very warm for him. I know how it is 
with these grand money-making schemes of 
Scipio’s ; they burst some fine morning and 
vanish like a soap-bubble. I was in your office 
only a short time, and it seemed to me I could 
detect an odor of corruption there. Well, 
when the collapse comes don’t forget that you 
have friends and well-wishers at Jeand’heurs. 
And now we’ll say good-by, for it is getting on 
near train time.” 

I am provoked with my cousin for his hostil- 
ity toward the Salvage Company, but embrace 
him nevertheless, then turn to Zelie. Her face 
is very pale and her emotion such that she can 
hardly part her lips to speak. She holds up 
her cheek for me to kiss without saying a word, 
and our leave-taking is a sorrowful one. 

I return to the Rue de Conde bearing with 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


221 


me a vague, deep-seated sensation of uneasi- 
ness. Zelie.’s parting words touching Alice’s 
health distress me and impart somber hues to 
all surrounding objects. When at evening 
once again I am in company with my little 
friend I watch her furtively, and it seems to 
me that the fears expressed by my cousin are 
only too well founded. Alice is grown very 
thin ; her frequent fits of coughing frighten 
me. Mme. Clemen ce, too, appears to be anx- 
ious over the changed condition of her daugh- 
ter’s health. She says nothing to the young 
girl of what is on her mind, doubtless from fear 
of causing her alarm; but she displays in- 
creased solicitude, she obliges Alice to go more 
warmly clad, she makes her take tonics, alleg- 
ing various pretexts. The girl submits to the 
new regimen with the same careless indiffer- 
ence that she now displays for everything. 
Her religious exaltation is even yet more 
marked, and the things of earth have less and 
less attraction for her. 

While we have these cares to trouble us the 
months are gliding slowly by. The affairs of 
the company languish ; no one visits the office 
now to exchange his cash for our shares. The 
cashier’s time is more occupied with paying 
bills than with depositing our receipts in bank. 
Each day the quotations of the Bourse have a 
fresh disappointment in store for us. Galleons 
have fallen to five hundred francs, and my 
uncle, who is become taciturn and morose, has 
not a word more to say of the great works 
that are being conducted out at the Bay of 


222 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


Castro. The situation of Ganivet, our office- 
boy, is almost a sinecure ; he has abundance of 
time to read, not the Petit Journal alone, but 
heaps of greasy, dog’s-eared novels, with which 
his desk is constantly loaded. 

As for Baptiste Guigne-a-Gouche, his anger 
knows no bounds, and it is I whom he selects 
as the object on which to discharge the vials of 
his wrath. Each time that he catches me 
alone, out of sight and hearing of my uncle, 
he gets me in a corner against the wall and, 
unmindful of my secretarial dignity, proceeds 
to free his mind in a tone of mingled injury and 
irritation. 

‘•'Look here, now,” he says, “does your 
uncle take me for a natural born fool ? It is a 
perfect shame the way the shares keep going 
down ! And liere am I who haven’t received 
the first penny of my wages ! If that’s the 
game you’re up to I’ll make a fuss ; you see if 
I don’t — and I won’t wait a great while longer, 
either ! ” 

I might tell him that I am in the same boat 
and have never been recompensed for my serv- 
ices as secretary, but feel that not only would 
such an avowal fail to pacify him, but would 
have indeed a directly opposite effect. I do 
what I can to bring healing to his wounded 
susceptibilities by promising to refresh my 
uncle’s memory, and he takes himself off, 
brandishing his feather duster in a wajr that 
bodes no good. The comrade is fond of money, 
his patience is not of the angelic order, and I 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


223 


have a prevision that some fine day he will ex- 
plode, like a boiler run at too high a pressure. 

Coming in from an errand one morning I hear 
loud voices raised in anger in the manager’s 
office. I hurry my steps, and entering the 
room behold my uncle in the act of shaking 
Guigne-a-Gouche as if he were a plum tree. 
Scipio Mougiuot is superb in his indignant 
wrath ; his eyes emit fulgurous flashes and his 
words have the ring of a trumpet blast. 

“ You impudent rascal ! ” he roared at the 
cowed waiting-man, “you thankless serpent 
whom I have warmed in my bosom, leave the 
house ; I discharge you ! ” 

Guigne-a-Gouche goes, and stands not on the 
order of his going, but once outside raises a 
most tremendous racket, bringing the other 
tenants out upon the stairs and vociferating 
that he will call in th£ police. 

This scandal is the epoch marking the com- 
mencement of our downfall. There is no deny- 
ing it : the affairs of the Salvage Company are 
in very, very bad shape. The gentlemen with 
rosettes on their coats are ho longer to be seen 
in the board-room, the offices are silent and de- 
serted, and when I open the morning mail all 
that I find there is tradesmen’s bills and papers 
bearing the stamp of government, all which I 
faithfully turnover to Uncle Scipio. 

He gives them a brief glance with his prac- 
ticed eye and negligently throws them into a 
great Japanese vase that stands beside his 
desk. But he cannot deal with his creditors as 
he deals with bills and drafts. It is a frequent 


224 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


occurrence now to hear stormy colloquies in the 
antechamber which remind me of the Cornevin 
Institute as it was in the last days of my resi- 
dence there. Sometimes, indeed, notwithstand- 
ing the opposition of the faithful Ganivet, who 
is adamant itself in firmness, a creditor, more 
stubborn or with broader shoulders than the 
rest, forces himself in and falls like a bombshell 
into the manager’s office. These are the occa- 
sions when it is granted me to appreciate at 
their true value the resources of Scipio’s genius 
and his unequaled powers of persuasion. Not 
only does he manage to send away the unpaid 
shopkeeper in a happy frame of mind, but many 
a time he succeeds in winning him over by dan- 
gling before his eyes the golden bait of the gal- 
leons and induces him to become a stockholder. 

All said and done, however, there is too 
much in our circumstances that reminds one 
of a house where there has been a recent death. 
That we are hard-pressed is only too plainly 
evident. The magnificent Jurgensen that my 
uncle used to extract so ostentatiously from his 
waistcoat pocket is seen no more, and other 
valuable knick-knacks that formerty served to 
ornament the apartment have gone the way of 
the watch. It is Ganivet who carries them 
away in secrecy and silence, under the mysteri- 
ous cloak of darkness. I am unable to say 
whether the fact that there is a branch of the 
Mont de Piete in our neighborhood had any- 
thing to do with influencing my perspicacious 
uncle’s choice when he hired the house in the 
Rue de Conde, but at all events the presence 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


225 


of the pawnbroker seems providential and our 
office-boy makes frequent journej^s to his shop, 
which is situated a little way up the street. I 
notice, moreover, that he does not confine him- 
self to carrying* oft the trinkets and bibelots 
which are my uncle’s own personal property, 
but that he is charged by Mme.. Clemence with 
a similar mission with reference to certain 
goods and chattels of hers. I cannot help but 
be worried and alarmed by all these symptoms 
of approaching disaster. They would disquiet 
me even more had I not matters still more 
serious to distress me. 

Alice is far from well. Several times she has 
been compelled to abandon her work where she 
is employed and keep her room. She has no 
appetite, coughs incessantly, and a doctor 
whom I have brought in at Mme. Clemence’s 
request shakes his head significantly after test- 
ing my little friend’s lungs by auscultation. 
He says it is an obstinate case of laryngitis, 
and recommends a sojourn at the South dur- 
ing the trying months of winter. 

The South ! Assuredly pure air and sun- 
shine would be potent remedies for the child, 
who has been breathing for so long a time 
the foul atmosphere of the workroom ; but 
how is such a journey possible in our present 
critical circumstances ? Mme. Saintot cannot 
give up her cashier’s place, which is now her 
sole source of livelihood, and as for Scipio Mou- 
-ginot, he is so utterly discouraged and pros- 
trated by the failure of his great project that 
it is useless to look To him for aid. And then. 


226 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


too, he appears to have no idea that Alice is 
ailing ; for the last month he has not shown 
his face in the apartment on the second floor 
more than two or three times. . Ah ! how de- 
voutly I wish it were in my power at this dis- 
tressing juncture to come to the succor of the 
dear child ! If I but had an occupation, if I 
could earn the money necessary for- the jour- 
ney ! — hut useless lamentations are all I have 
to give. Mme. Clemence, moved by a heroic 
sentiment of delicacy, has forbidden me to 
speak of the matter to Uncle Scipio. 

“ He has trials enough of his own,” she says, 
“ without tormenting him with the troubles of 
others.” 

It seems to me that this is carrying self- 
abnegation too far',%nd after revolving the sub- 
ject in my mind I resolve to see what I can 
effect with my uncle. His heart is good and 
his imagination fertile ; may it not be that he 
will evolve some plan for saving Alice ? It is 
on a gloomy afternoon in October, when the 
rain has confined us both indoors, that I make 
up my mind to impart to him my apprehen- 
sions. I push the door open softly and enter 
the office of the manager, where I find Scipio 
Mouginot sunk listlessly in his fauteuil, his 
face shaded by his hand, the picture of desola- 
tion. 

“Is it you, Jacques ? ” he murmurs, remov- 
ing his hand and disclosing a woebegone coun- 
tenance. “ A gloomy day, my boy, a gloomy 
day, outside as well as in ! Our affairs are like 
the weather — there is little cheer in them. The 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


227 


glorious enterprise of the galleons is founder- 
ing,, sinking, beneath the weight of some men’s 
hostility and the blundering stupidity of others. 
I have been forced to yield my assent to the 
dissolution of the company ; a receiver has been 
appointed, and after to-morrow I shall be noth- 
ing here. I shall make my exit as I made my 
entrance — poor, but without a smirch upon my 
honor ! ” 

I could not possibly have selected a more un- 
propitious moment for speaking to the luckless 
manager of Alice’s condition, but I pluck up 
my courage, and expressing to my uncle my 
profound commiseration for him in his time of 
trouble, I add : 

“What is to become of Mine. Saintot — and 
Alice?” 

“ Oh, Mine. Clemence is a valiant woman, 
nothing is capable of daunting her. Besides, 
she has her position as cashier.” 

“ That is very little, particularly in her 
daughter’s present state of health.” 

“ Her daughter’s health ! What’s that 
you’re telling me ? Is Alice ill ? ” 

“ Have you not noticed how she has changed 
of late ? She coughs continually, her strength 
is giving way. We have had a doctor in ; he 
tells me that the lungs are affected and recom- 
mends a visit to Nice or Mentone.” 

My uncle rouses himself from his abstraction 
and shakes his head : 

“ This is the first I have heard of the mat- 
ter — Alice consumptive, you say ! Poor child, 
poor child ! And the doctor prescribes a resi- 


228 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


clence at the littoral — the country of sunshine 
and flowers ? I, too, have alwa}^ cherished a 
fond dream of knowing* the benig*n land where 
the orang*e trees bloom ! — but I have always had 
business, my eternal rock of Sisyphus, impend- 
ing* over me. Nice the beautiful, the Mediter- 
ranean, forever smiling*, forever blue ; w T hat a 
vision ! ” 

Scipio Mouginot’s face has lost its woebegone 
expression, his eyes dance with their wonted 
smiling brilliancy. It would seem that the sun 
of the South, by some mysterious process of 
induction, has brought back his vanished youth 
and erased the wrinkles from his brow, the 
cares and troubles from his mind. 

“Nice!” he continues; “I remember that 
there is a man down there who owes me money 
■ — a nurseryman, who bought a bill of Vosges 
linen from us, and from whom we were never 
able to extract a sou. Those Southerners have 
no idea of business. Just think, Jacques, he 
offered to pay me in kind — in flowers and 
oranges ! ” 

My uncle has risen from his chair. He 
walks with g-reat strides up and down the 
room. Suddenly he stops, smites himself on 
the forehead, raises both arms high in air and 
cries : 


“ Oh, I have it ! — I have an idea, a most 
pregnant idea ! ” And coming back and facing 
me with a triumphant air : “ My boy, when the 
vein has ceased to yield, the man is an idiot who 
keeps on working it. A man of action should 
do as the soldier does when on the march — 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


•229 


when he finds his musket becoming heavy he 
shifts it to the other shoulder ; and that is 
what I am going to do instanter. The gal- 
leons are dead ; hurrah for the fruits and flow- 
ers of the Cornice ! The worthy horticulturist 
who owes me money has offered to pay me with 
his products. We must take the ball on the 
bound. With his assistance we may be able to 
build up an extensive business. The flower 
trade is daily assuming larger propor- 
tions. We’ll start a great floricultural com- 
pany; we’ll inundate Paris with roses and vio- 
lets. Ha, ha, Jacques ! the idea has struck 
root, it puts forth buds of promise ; it shall 
bear fruits of gold, like those of the littoral ! 
Run quick to our dear child and tell her to 
pack her trunks ; before we are two days older 
we will bear her away to Nice ! ” 


CHAPTER XIY. 

Uncle Scipio has proved himself a man of 
his word ; he, Alice and I are installed in lodg- 
ings at Nice. When we left Paris on a bitterly 
cold day in October the poor child was shiver- 
ing and her teeth chattered in the railway car ; 
I feared she would not have strength to endure 
the fatigue of the long journey. By the time 
we reach Marseilles, however, the vivifying 
sun of Provence appears to have given renewed 
vigor to our patient, and when, coming to a 
bend in the road among the mountains of 
Esterel, we behold before us the gracious in- 


230 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


dentations of the coast, the blue Mediterrane- 
an’s broad expanse, the gentle hills with their 
terraced orange groves, the great fields of 
roses and tuberoses, Alice’s pale cheeks flush 
with delight and a bright smile plays on her 
lips. During the first week of our residence a 
sudden change for the better manifests itself ; 
our little friend regains her old-time gayety, 
and we commence to entertain hopes that she 
will get well. This being the case, my uncle 
assumes to himself the airs and the credit of 
being her preserver ; to hear him talk one 
would suppose that it was he, unaided, who 
had wrought this miracle, by devotedly expa- 
triating himself in order that Alice might no 
longer breathe the impure air of Paris. But I 
am not so unsophisticated as I used to be ; ex- 
perience has made me something of a skeptic, 
and Scipio Mouginot is less a sealed book to me 
than he was. I have my suspicions that if he 
was so ready to take Alice on the Southern trip 
it was owing to his necessities rather than to 
his affection for the girl, and that his chief ob- 
ject was to put himself beyond the reach of his 
unfortunate creditors. 

Now he is hot as fire in following up his new 
enterprise. Before leaving Paris he called on 
some money-lenders of his acquaintance and, 
by dint of his glowing accounts of the enor- 
mous profits to be realized, succeeded in raising 
a small capital, and immediately on his arrival 
he proceeds to hunt up his Nicois debtor. The 
honest horticulturist is financially embarrassed, 
and is delighted to liquidate his debt by dis- 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 231 

pensing to my uncle the violets and oranges 
from his garden, Scipio has hired a spacious 
shop and four rooms on the floor above in. the 
Rue Saint- Francois-de-Paule, only a step or 
two from the Cours. He has adorned the front 
with magnificent plate-glass windows of crys- 
talline transparency, and above the door an 
attractive sign displays in great golden letters 
the legend : 

GARDEN OF ARMIDA. 

BOUQUETS FOR HIGH-LIFE A SPECIALTY. — FLOW- 
ERS FOR EXPORT. — ENGLISH SPOKEN. 

And of a truth the shop does produce some- 
thing of the effect of a garden of enchantment 
with its stuccoed walls and brightly trans- 
parent glass, its ornamented ceiling and odor- 
ous atmosphere. The floor, laid in black and 
white marble tiles, is kept strewn with a light 
coating of fine sand. On the tiers of shelves in 
the showcases cut flowers are arranged' in 
handsome jars and vases of Vallauris ; the 
marble counters are ablaze w T ith brilliant color, 
subdued and softened by masses of tender 
verdure, and when a ray of sunshine enters 
through the window and falls upon the gra- 
cious, bright display, all those half-open calices, 
all those soft-hued petals, seem to palpitate 
and become instinct with life. Tea-roses ex- 
hibit their delicate shades of color against a 
background of maiden-hair and spleenwort, 
fragile and filmy as lace ; blood-red carnations 
rear their heads above virginal, cream-white 
hyacinths; the brownish purple of Russian 


232 


MY UNCLE SCIPTO. 


violets and the azure of Parma violets har- 
monize deliciously with the bright yellow of 
mimosas, the lemon-color of jonquils and the 
vivid gold of chrysanthemums. On every side 
is a symphony of color, attended by a sym- 
phony of perfume. The vanilla of. heliotropes 
mingles with the spicy fragrance of white ju- 
lians, the faint, suave odor of mignonette is lost 
among the more powerful, heady exhalations of 
jasmine. And above these tremulous, verdant 
fronds and this opulence of bright-hued blos- 
soms, these fair, frail structures fashioned like 
cups, like bells, or pendent in graceful clusters, 
above these banks of creamy white and brilliant 
scarlet, Alice, seated at the counter, rears her 
pretty head, flower among flowers, a budding 
rose among those roses blown. 

Only a few steps from our shop is the mar- 
ket-place, which each morning affords a bright 
scene of cheerful gayety. The pleasant girls 
who have come in from the near-by villages 
with baskets filled with country produce sta- 
tion themselves in rows along the sidewalk up 
to our very door, and thus we have another 
spectacle on which to feast our eyes. The aro- 
matic herbs interspersed among the homely 
but sweet-scented flowers of the garden, the 
great piles of vegetables, of lemons and oranges 
with their glossy dark-green leaves, the pyra- 
mids of purple figs, tell of a land of plenty 
where merely to draw the breath of life is a 
delight. Among these tempting displays of 
fruits and flowers, which exhale a wholesome 
odor of the country, a gayly dressed throng of 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


233 


pleasure-seekers is constantly in motion, laugh- 
ing*, talking*, and accosting one another. Gusts 
of merriment rise on the sun-warmed air, where 
they blend with the sonorous music of the pro- 
ven gal patois. We all lose our hearts and are 
captivated by the charm of our surroundings : 
by the expansive jollity of these good people of 
the South, the smiling blue sea that we catch 
glimpses of through the arched entrance-ways 
of the houses on the terrace, and the magical 
effects of the light falling with softened splen- 
dor of silver and azure on the rounded hills 
clad with dense groves of olive trees. Scipio 
Mouginot is gayer and jauntier than ever; 
with his ready faculty of assimilation he has 
put off the Parisian and become a ISTicois in all 
his ways ; he even speaks with a provengal ac- 
cent. Alice once more thinks that it is good to 
live ; she has laid aside that calm indifference 
for object animate and inanimate that formerly 
distressed me so earth claims her for its own 
again, and only a day or two ago I overheard 
her humming an Italian air that an organ was 
playing down in the Rue Saint-Francois-de- 
Paule. 

Attracted by my uncle’s good-humored lo- 
quacity, and yet more by Alice’s ethereal beau- 
ty, customers soon begin to flock to the Garden 
of Armida. The ladies of the English colony 
have taken a liking to the pretty flower-girl, 
whom they call “ the little Madonna,” and all 
the young swells of Nice consider it the correct 
thing to buy their button-hole bouquets from 
us ; our shop has the approval of the world of 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


234 


fashion. The bouquets, which Alice arranges 
with a taste that is altogether Parisian, have a 
character of originality and an expression, so 
to speak, of life ; we find ourselves unable to 
fill our orders and are obliged to employ extra 
help. My uncle rubs his hands and declares 
that our fortune is made, and with returning 
prosperity his love for good cheer and the com- 
forts of life also returns. He deprives himself 
of no gratification ; our table is always abun- 
dantly supplied with all the delicacies the mar- 
ket has to afford. On Sundays a carriage is 
engaged at the livery stable and we all drive 
over to Beaulieu or Saint- Jean and have break- 
fast there ; now and then we even push on as 
far as Monaco and Mentone. It is late when we 
return ; the sky is spangled with stars, which, 
owing to the clearness of the atmosphere, ap- 
pear double the size of those at home. Exhil- 
arated by the beauty of the night, the perfume 
of woods and fields, and also, it may be, by a 
certain wine of Bellet with which he has irri- 
gated his bouilla baisse, Scipio Mouginot swears 
that Nice is the finest city^ in the world, that 
opportunities of making money are as thick as 
lemons on the trees, and in a fine frenz} r of en- 
thusiasm he declares that we will never leave it 
until we are all millionaires. 

I do not put much faith in his prophecies, 
however. With the experience of the past still 
fresh in my memory, I know now how prone my 
uncle is to deceive himself with glittering gen- 
eralities and how unconcernedly he kills his 
goose that laid the golden egg after devoting 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


235 


the most loving’ care to rearing it. I have an 
ill-defined idea that we are spending all we 
make, and I reflect with terror on what our 
destiny must be should the Garden of Armida 
some day experience the fate of the galleons of 
.Castro. It is Alice’s health, much' more than 
all Scipio’s fantastic expectations, that occu- 
pies my mind, and I set to work in earnest to 
see if I cannot find some work to do whereby I 
might earn our daily bread in case the business 
should prove a failure. Nice is a cosmopolitan 
city where numerous foreigners pitch their tents 
for the winter, and my favorite dream is that 
of coming across some powerful, extremely 
wealthy nobleman who shall give me employ- 
ment as his secretary. I know nothing of the 
flower business or of bookkeeping, and it 
shames me to be useless, a drone in the hive. 
I pursue my inquiries in secret, applying to the 
employment agencies and the landlords of the 
principal hotels, but my researches are fruit- 
less, and for more than a month I continue 
vainly to scour the city, seeking a salaried posi- 
tion. The things that we earnestly desire, how- 
ever, most frequently come to pass unexpect- 
edly, when we are weary with waiting and have 
given up all hope. 

Scipio Mouginot has driven us over to Monaco 
one Sunday, and while he and Alice are inspect- 
ing the gardens I, incited by my curiosity, take 
a peep into the cardrooms. In those days 
Monte-Carlo was but a bare rock, scorched by 
the sun and planted with a few pine trees; 
what gambling there was was done in the 


236 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


lower part of Monaco, in a house that was 
very unlike the magnificent palace of to-day. 

I enter the roulette-room and loiter around 
the table surrounded with a fringe of absorbed 
players, not with the intention of trying my 
luck — my purse is too scantily filled for that — 
but to watch a scene that is entirely strange 
to me. I have been standing there only a 
short time when, among the punters bending 
over the green cloth, I observe a person whose 
long, lean face seems not unknown to me. The 
gentleman who has thus attracted my attention 
has long black hair combed back behind his 
ears, his black velvet sack shows signs of wear, 
he is industrious^ pricking holes with a pin in 
a card with many figures printed on it. I pass 
around to the other side of the table where I 
can obtain a front view — there is no longer any 
room for doubt : those sunken cheeks, that 
close-shaven chin, those ecstatic eyes can be- 
long to no one but my quondam professor at 
CorneviiTs, my instructor in the poetic art, 
Oscar Fencherot. Pleased to encounter a 
friend of other days amid these distant scenes, 
I retrace my steps to where the man of the 
velvet sack is standing and place my hand 
upon his shoulder; he turns petulantly, like 
an opium-smoker aroused untimely from an 
entrancing vision, and blinking solemnly at 
me out of his great dreamy eyes : 

“My friend,” he says in his excessively 
urbane tone, “is not your name Jacques Mou- 
ginot ? ” 

“ Yes, it is I, Monsieur Fencherot ; of course 


„MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


237 


it is I — very glad to see 3 r ou and shake hands 
with you once more.” 

“Most strange encounter, big with fate,!” 
he theatrically exclaims, thrusting his card 
into his pocket and conducting me to a seat. 
“ What are you doing here, Mouginot ? ” 

I inform him of the causes that led up to 
our journey to Nice and mention my uncle’s 
new business ; then I question him in turn on 
his own adventures and the reason of his being 
at Monaco. 

“ You ask what brought me to this land 
where croupiers, cacti and aloes flourish ? ” he 
replies. “Alas, dear friend, I shall have to 
answer you in the words of my brother poet, 
Persius : f The teacher of all liberal arts, the 
dispenser of intellect — the stomach ! ’ On leav- 
ing our poor friend Evariste’s establishment I 
found myself confronted with the ridiculous 
prospect of starving. I tried various methods, 
none of them very remunerative, for making 
an honest living, one of which was celebrating 
the virtues of a new kind of soap in rhymed 
verse; auother, playing the role of lightning 
calculator at suburban fairs and selling a little 
book of instructions. Those expedients barely 
kept body and soul together. Then an old 
chum of mine, who has something to do with 
the advertising department of the sporting 
journals, sent me down here so that he might 
keep his patrons posted on what was going on 
among the roulette and trente-et-quarante 
players. “ Once a Week ” I send him a letter for 
the edification of swelldom in which I extol 


23 ^ 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


the delights of Monaco to the seventh heaven 
and celebrate the seductions of the gambling- 
house. The work is not very high-toned and 
is not very well paid, but the croupiers are 
good to me, and I occasionally make a little 
something extra by risking a franc or two on 
the red or black.” 

“ I am less speculatively inclined than you,” 

I say in reply to my former preceptor, “but 
I would like to earn a little money and have 
been looking for some occupation to employ my 
leisure hours. Don’t you know of some stranger 
here who needs a secretary ? ” 

Oscar Fencherot scratches his nose con tern- * 
platively a moment, then, tossing back his 
long locks, exclaims : 

“Hold on a bit, I think I can arrange 
matters for you. Some time ago I made ac- 
quaintance in the trent-et-quarante room with 
a Russian nobleman who is music-mad. He is 
composing an oratorio or something of the 
sort, and is looking for a competent man to 
write him a versified libretto in French. Natu- 
rally enough he applied to me, but I have 
registered a vow in heaven never to be the 
slave of musicians and their idiotic caprices, 
so I declined. The position is vacant still, and 
if you are less^scrupulous — ” 

“ I have not the least fragment of a scruple, 
my dear professor, and am ready to go ahead 
and rhyme as long as 3'our friend desires.” 

“That’s all right, then. My Russian’s 
name is Nogaroff and he is staying at Nice. I 
will present you to him to-morrow.” 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


239 


We appoint a time and place for meeting the 
next day; I thank the heaven-sent Fencherot 
warmly and leave him to go and find my uncle. 

On the morrow, at ten in the morning, 
Oscar, who has smartened himself up a bit, 
goes with me to M. Nogaroff’s villa. We are 
ushered into a small salon where chairs and 
tables are loaded with music, hound and in 
sheets, and find our man seated at a grand 
piano. He is almost gigantic in stature, with 
long, flowing beard and Kalmuc features : pug 
nose, prominent cheek-bones and small blue 
eyes, set obliquely in his head, that seem to 
look at one caressingly. He receives us with 
an affectation of politeness and proceeds to in- 
form me, speaking with a strong nasal accent, 
what it is that he requires from his future col- 
laborator. 

He is writing a lyrical symphony founded on 
LermontoPs “ Demon/’ but as his work is in- 
tended for the French stage he wishes to have 
a ? French libretto adapted from the Russian 
poem, in accordance with instructions to be 
given by him, in which recitative shall alter- 
nate with lyric verse. The libretto is to em- 
brace from five to six hundred lines and the pay 
will be five hundred francs. 

Five hundred francs for five or six hundred 
lines ! for a poor devil of a tyro like me it is 
Pactolus. I accept his proposal rapturously ; 
he hands me a translation of the “ Demon / 7 and 
it is agreed that within two da3 r s I am to let 
him see a specimen of my skill. 

That evening I devote to the perusal of Ler- 


240 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


montof’s poem; I make Samara’s mishaps my 
own, and tackle to my task with such fever- 
ish ardor that on the second day- 1 am able to 
submit to M. Nogaroff the forty lines of the in- 
troduction. He appears to he well pleased, and 
thereafter a large part of my nig*hts is spent in 
rhyming*. It does not take me long* to dis- 
cover, however, that the profession of librettist 
has its drawbacks no less than others. The 
Russian is enthusiastic and not niggardly of 
commendation, but he also has his streaks of 
ill-liumor ; he is fantastic, variable, hard to 
please, and more than once we have unpleasant 
disputes which always result in my being- 
obliged to rewrite my verses to suit his caprice. 
I have to convert a duo into a monologue, 
where I had put rhymed stanzas he insists on 
having a recitative. At times I lose patience 
and am tempted to dissolve partnership with 
the Muscovite, whose drawling criticisms grate 
on my nerves, but I see before me in the dis- 
tance the promised five hundred francs, flash- 
ing like a beacon light across a stormy sea, and 
then I take heart again. Finally the libretto, 
after having been pared and pruned and 
changed and rechanged some twenty times, is 
completed and stands erect on its somewhat 
shaky feet ; M. Nogaroff gives it a last perusal, 
informs me that it is satisfactory, goes to his 
secretary, takes therefrom twenty-five louis, 
and placing the money in m3" hand, says in his 
nasal drawl : 

“ A thousand thanks, Monsieur Mouginot ; I 
am highly pleased with your collaboration. I 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


'’4 1 

hope you will not decline to favor me with your 
assistance another time should I have need of 
it. Drop in and see me sometimes ; another 
project may arise.” 

I thank him, delighted that Samara is off my 
hands ; stil% more delighted to hear jingling in 
my pocket the twenty-five gold pieces that I 
have earned by my labors and which will be 
something to fall back on if in the future the 
gales of adversity shall wreak their fury on the 
Garden of Armida. 

Ah, me ! that blast of evil is speedily upon us. 
With the opening of February the weather, 
which until then had been of vernal mildness, 
suddenty changes and becomes cold and rainy. 
Squalls pour down through the clefts and gorges 
of the snow-clad mountains, chilling us with 
their icy breath and downpour of hail and sleet. 
The ramshackle old houses of Nice afford but 
scant protection to their inmates when Boreas 
makes his attack in earnest, and ours particu- 
larly, with its shop-door constantly swinging, 
is full of draughts and air currents. Alice has 
contracted a bad cold ; she coughs alarmingly. 
For all one month she is forced to keep her 
room, and the physician who attends her shakes 
his head ominously, just as did his confrere of 
Paris. Like all his profession, he is reticent 
and employs the customary hopeful common- 
places in speaking to us, but cannot conceal his 
opinion that the condition of the patient is very 
critical. 

Fortune, too, has ceased to favor us with her 
smiles now that Alice is ill and no longer illu- 


242 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


mines the shop and its heaped-up posies with 
her ethereal white beauty. Our bouquets, 
which under my little friend’s fairy fingers used 
to have the appearance of breathing, sentient 
things, now assume a character of lifeless vul- 
garity. The customers seem to liave noticed 
the absence of the “ little Madonna” ; they visit 
the place less frequently, our orders are less nu- 
merous and there is a falling off in the daily 
receipts. Whether Alice has guessed it or 
whether some words inconsiderately let fall by 
Uncle Scipio have informed her that our affairs 
are in a bad way is more than I can tell, but she 
is scarce more than recovered from her cold 
than she insists on coming downstairs and re- 
suming her place in the shop. But customers, 
unfortunately, have forgotten the way to our 
establishment ; the wind of popular favor that 
was wafting us along so nicely now goes to fill 
the sails of our more lucky rivals. In vain does 
our little fairy’s talent compose baskets that 
are a feast for the eye, improvise bouquets 
arranged with such marvelous effects, of color 
that they are like poetic creations ; the fine 
ladies come to us no more and the young gen- 
tlemen go elsewhere for the flower with which 
to adorn the lapel of their coat. Still, Alice 
does not allow herself to be disheartened ; she 
works industriously, animated by a sort of 
passion for the flowers that are brought us by 
the armful and that she cannot bear to leave. 

To be thus confined unintermittently to a 
close room where the air is heavy with violent 
odors is not calculated to restore her health. 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


243 


The emanations of the flowers, too strong* for 
her debilitated organization, render the ailing 
girl weak and languid. Day by day she be- 
comes paler and more emaciated. Her eyes 
alone, her magnificent black eyes, are un- 
changed, and even blaze with a brighter luster 
above her hollow cheeks. She eats scarcely 
anything ; her strength is slowly leaving her ; 
it taxes her powers to the utmost to mount and 
descend the stairs that conduct to the floor 
above the shop. We urge her to remain in her 
room and rest, but all to no purpose ; she in- 
sists on keeping her place behind the counter 
and handling those plants that seem too heavy 
for her poor wasted fingers. Lingeringly, with 
painful effort, yet with loving care, she slowly 
gathers together the blooming sprays ; it af- 
fords her an unwholesome pleasure to inhale 
the fragrance of the violets, to raise to her lips 
the clusters of dewy hyacinths. Suddenly a 
mist passes before her eyes, her head begins to 
swim, a waxen pallor overspreads her face ; 
she is on the point of fainting, and lets fall 
upon the marble slab the unfinished bouquet 
whose intoxicating perfume suffocates her. 

Little Alice is dying, slowly dying, among her 
flowers. She casts wistffll looks, full of jealous ad- 
miration, on those fresh, lusty growths, so bright 
of hue, so abounding in life, that open wide 
their hungry mouths as if to rob her of the 
little breath she has left. When at midday I 
leave the house to go and attend on M. Noga- 
roff. who has lately made me his secretary, I 
see my little friend seated in a corner, a warm 


244 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


shawl thrown about her attenuated shoulders, 
laboriously engaged in arranging violets in 
little bunches that our shop-boy sells on the 
Promenade des Anglais — for by this time cus- 
tomers have entirety ceased to come to us. My 
duties — copying manuscripts or reading aloud — 
occupy some three hours, and when I return I 
find her still at her post before the heaped-up 
pinks and roses, but with strength all gone ; 
her breath comes thick and fast, her head is 
sunk wearily upon her breast and a hacking 
cough convulses her slight frame. Vainly I 
beseech her to rest ; she will not listen ; she 
cannot tear herself from those flowers that are 
killing her, but which still convey to her illu- 
sory reminders of life, its smiling joys and 
pleasures. 

For — and it is a strange thing in this child 
who only a short while ago was so entirety 
weaned from all the delights of life — as the 
hour draws near when Death shall brush her 
with his wing, she is seized with a fierce desire 
to live and enjoy the pleasures of a youth that 
is so rapidly and insidiously slipping from her 
grasp. Never has she shown such eagerness 
to know what was going on outside our house, 
such curiosity in regard to shows and entertain- 
ments, such passionate love for perfume, light 
and color. 

One morning that I had gone to the fields 
that lie along the Var in quest of our daily 
supply of violets, noticing a peach tree in full 
blossom, I cut off a branch and brought it to 
her. She had endeavored to go downstairs to 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


245 


the shop, hut her strength would not permit 
it, and on my return I found her reclining in 
a fauteuil near the low arched window, her 
emaciated form lost in a heavily wadded peig- 
noir. A smile plays on her thin lips at sight 
of the delicate pink blooms, she eagerly takes 
the flower-laden branch from my hand and 
lays it lovingly against her cheek. 

“ How beautiful ! ” she sighs; “how like 
these blossoms are to living things ! Oh, how 
I wish I might see the green fields once more ! 
The peach trees must be covered with buds by 
this time, but I shall not live to see them open.” 

Her great black eyes are riveted on my face 
as she gives utterance to these hopeless words 
and her look reads mine as if anxiously seeking 
to find a contradiction there. 

“ What an idea ! ” I reply, summoning a 
smile to my face with an effort that wrings 
my heart. “ Why, certainly you will see them. 
The weather is coming off fine again, you will 
regain your strength, and we’ll have our little 
excursions as before.” 

She eagerly grasps my hands in hers, that 
are burning hot. “I shall get well,” she 
pleads, “say, tell me, shall I not? A trifling 
cold like this, at my age, who ever dies of it ? 
I am only sixteen, and I cannot bear to leave 
the world without having seen what life is like 
— I shall soon be able to go out in the glad sun- 
shine, like the rest of you, and climb the hills 
down yonder where the wild hyacinths will be 
in bloom — promise me I shall, won’t you?” 

“ Yes, Alice, yes; As soon as you are able to 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


2^6 

go out we will take you to Saint-Jean, and we’ll 
spend a whole day there.” 

“ Oh ! I do so want to live ! I cannot tell you 
how I envy girls who are strong and healthy 
and have some color in their cheeks — like your 
cousin Zelie, for example. Long ago, when we 
were in Paris, I was jealous of her robust ap- 
pearance. There is a girl who is happy and can 
enjoy her youth ! It Is this close room that is 
taking away my strength. Give me your arm, 
Jacques ; I think I will go down to the shop.” 

She rises and takes my arm, totters forward 
a few steps, then falls in a fainting condition 
back into her easy-chair. I summon the girl 
from the shop to assist me to place her on the 
bed and hurry from the room, my throat filled 
with thick-coming sobs, to find a place where I 
may shed my tears unseen. My uncle is not at 
home, but I must see him to tell him of my 
fears. For some weeks past, since our affairs 
have been goingbadly and our drafts have been 
coming back to us protested, Scipio Mougmot 
has conceived an aversion for his establishment ; 
he keeps hipiself out of the way, haunting the 
seashore and the purlieus of the market, where 
he broods on the situation and dreams of other 
enterprises. I start out to hunt him up, and 
finally come across him at the corner of the 
Place Saint-Dominique. He is standing with 
legs apart, contemplatively regarding a build- 
ing across whose front was a huge sign read- 
ing : Navigation and Emigration Company. 
I touch him on the shoulder and with some diffi- 
culty arouse him from his reverie. 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


247 


<{ What’s the matter, Jacques ? ’ he inquires. 
“ You alarm me with your scared face.” 

“ Uncle, Alice is very ill. I think it will be 
best for you to write at once to Mme. Clem- 
ence.” 

“ That's just like .you,” he exclaims with an 
impatient shrug*, “ forever exaggerating things ! 
What does the doctor say?” 

“ I am going* for him now, hut write, uncle, I 
I beseech you ! There is no time to Iosq, and 
Mme. Clemence would never forgive us should 
she not be allowed to embrace her daughter be- 
fore — before all is ended.” 

My uncle finally yields to my instances. 
Word is sent to Mme. Saintot, but it is un- 
certain if she will arrive in time, for the dis- 
ease is making fearfully rapid progress. In 
order not to alarm the sick girl we tell 
her that her mother has been granted ten 
days’ leave of absence and is coming to spend 
her holiday at Nice. Alice awaits her arrival 
with feverish impatience, and it almost breaks 
our hearts to hear the programme of amuse- 
ment she lays out against the time when 
Mme. Clemence shall be with us. At last a 
telegram informs us that the wretched mother 
has started on her journey. * On the morning 
of the day when she is expected by the Tou- 
lon diligence Alice insists on rising. She feels 
better, she declares, and requests that a bas- 
ket of violets be brought to her. 

“1 wish to arrange a bouquet to welcome 
mamma,” she says. 

She bunches and ties the fragrant bios- 


248 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


soms, breathing laboriously under the effort 
and bending her ear to catch each passing 
sound in the street below. There is a noise 
of carriage wheels ; she starts violently and 
rises half-way to her feet. 

“ She is here ! she is here ! ” she faintly 
cries. 

Then her head declines upon the pillow, the 
violets fall from her lap and are scattered on 
the floor. I utter a cry of horror and despair. 
All is over ; little Alice, the gracious fairy of 
Villotte wood, is no more. 


CHAPTER XV. 

Mme. Clemence is too late ; all that is af- 
forded to her embrace is the wasted form of her 
dead daughter. My heart is lacerated by the 
spectacle of the poor woman’s grief. She can- 
not be made to tear herself from the lifeless 
form of her adored child, whose beauteous 
features are scarcely changed in death, and 
whom she presses to her bosom with despairing 
tenderness. We are compelled to resort to 
stratagem to induce her to leave the chamber 
while the dead gill’s remains are being placed 
in a coffin that is filled to overflowing with 
lilies - of - the - valley, roses and white lilacs. 
Through the streets of the old town we con- 
duct all that is left of little Alice, to the ceme- 
tery of the Chateau, whence there is an out- 
look over the mountains and the sea. Mme. 
Clemence, supported by Uncle Scipio and me, 
follows the cortege courageously to the terrace 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


249 


where the grave has been prepared, but there 
the parting scene is heart-rending ; the afflicted 
mother faints as the coffin is lost to sight in the 
cold ground and we are compelled to carr\ r her 
back to the carriage. The next day she in- 
sists on returning to Paris by an early train. 
I can understand the feeling of horror that the 
Garden of Armida inspires in her ; she feels 
that it is responsible for hastening her child’s 
death, and the sight of the heaped-up flowers 
upon the counters adds to and intensifies her 
grief. We go with her to where she is to take 
the diligence. As we are about to part she 
takes me by the arm, and drawing me to one 
side : 

“ You loved her,” she murmurs. “ Promise 
me that you will have a stone placed over her 
grave and will not abandon her to solitude in 
this land of strangers. Go and visit her now 
and then in her last resting-place, as you used 
to come and visit her when she was with me.” 

I pledge my word to respect her wishes, and 
the heavy diligence rumbles off over the cobble- 
stones of the Rue de France, bearing away to 
Paris the bereaved mother for whom there is 
henceforth to be no joy in life. 

I am left standing on the pavement alone 
with Scipio Mouginot, and not a word do we 
address to each other as we return to our lonely 
abode. My uncle is become strangely taciturn 
and gloomy ; he seems to be revolving in his 
mind some sinister project, the nature of which 
I cannot divine. As for myself, I lead, as it 
were, a twofold existence : the material part of 


250 MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 

me fulfills mechanically its daily allotted task, 
but my spirit is absent on the distant hillside, 
floating* above the grave where rest the mortal 
remains of Alice. I know no peace save when 
thinking or acting for her. Out of my earn- 
ings I have paid for the plot in the cemetery, 
and now I order a memorial to mark the place 
where she lies buried — a plain tombstone of 
white marble on which is to be chiseled the 
inscription: “ Alice Sain tot. Aged Sixteen.” 
The promise I made the mother I observe 
scrupulously, and each day, on leaving fmy 
employer, I bend my steps to the cemetery of 
the Chateau, bearing flowers to strew upon 
the grave. 

I remain there until it is time for the gates to 
close, pacing the terrace where the ground is 
covered with a fresh growth of grass, among 
which johnny-jump-ups lift their pretty faces. 
I converse in thought with my dead darling, 
I summon up every memory that speaks to me 
of her — from the time when we saw each other 
first at the Hotel du Cygne down to our last 
interview in her little bedroom, when I brought 
her the branch of peach blossoms. One after- 
noon, about two weeks subsequent to the fu- 
neral, I am in the cemetery in accomplishment 
of my daily pilgrimage. It is early April ; 
there have been showers of rain and sleet dur- 
ing the morning and great white clouds edged 
with black are hanging still about the summits 
of the highest of the mountains ; elsewhere the 
sky is of a very deep, pure blue. Through the 
vapors gathered over Esterel the setting sun 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


251 


casts a dull, pale light that imparts silvery 
tones to the olive groves on the low hills, where 
villas, scattered here and there, make bright 
spots of white and pink against the more sober 
green. Among the holm oaks andcarobs of the 
Chateau the blackbirds are whistling, just as 
they do at home, and carry me back for the 
time being to Villotte and its forest. Down 
in the valley there is a bluish mist floating in 
the air and veiling the city, which I should not 
know was there were it not for the bells faintly 
tinkling from the steeples of the churches ; all 
that the e} T e can see is the amphitheater of pale- 
green hills, the rugged mountain-sides clad with 
verdure of a darker hue, and the wide, milky 
blue expanse of sea. Behind me, in the hollow 
where lies the port of Lympia, I hear the deep 
sound of a steamer’s whistle, and fifteen min- 
utes later I behold the Marseilles packet creep- 
ing out on the pale azure of the Mediterranean 
and gaining her offing, trailing behind her a 
long plume of smoke. 

I know not why, but a shivering sensation of 
evil seizes me. The sight of the steamer re- 
ceding toward the dim, vaporous horizon is a 
painful reminder to me that I am in a strange 
land, far, ver}" far, from home and friends. A 
feeling of melancholy that will not be shaken 
off takes possession of me, changing the current 
of my reflections and inclining them to consid- 
erations of a purely material order. I reflect 
on our situation and its increasing difficulties. 
The death of our little fairy has been a death- 
blow to the Garden of Aranda; the sale 


252 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


of our flowers has almost entirely ceased, 
and I feel that a crisis is at hand. 
What is to become of us when our resources 
are finally exhausted ? How will my uncle 
stand this fresh catastrophe ? Each new day 
beholds him more anxious and careworn ; it 
seems to me that he whose bright anticipations 
it requires so much to dash is yielding to deep- 
est discouragement. His face has lost its light, 
the source of his facile eloquence is choked, He 
is a man with whom the impression of the mo- 
ment counts for everything, and under the im- 
pulse of some great trial is capable of going to 
extremes. He left the house this morning be- 
fore I did, he did not return to partake of our 
noonday breakfast, and remembering .this cir- 
cumstance forebodings of impending evil force 
themselves on my mind. Can it be that Scipio 
Mouginot, wearied with his struggles, con- 
fronted by a situation from which he can see 
no issue, has determined to bid farewell 
to life ? My boyish imagination once started 
on that track, the more I reflect on it the more 
probable does the theory of suicide appear to 
me. An unutterable terror seizes and holds 
me ; I behold my uncle weltering in his blood 
with a great hole in his head where the fatal 
bullet has crashed through, and springing up 
the steps of the terrace four at a time I hasten, 
my fears lending me wings, to the Hue Saint- 
Francais-de-Paule. A great shudder passes 
over me as I cross the threshold of the Garden 
of Armida, where our sole assistant, his occu- 
pation gone, is slumbering peacefully in a 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


253 


corner, his chair tilted back against the wall. 
A deathlike stillness pervades the apartment. 
I climb the stairs, I enter my uncle’s chamber, 
and the first thing that strikes my eye in the 
empty room where everything is in disorder is 
a letter, conspicuously displayed on the top of 
the writing-table. I draw near and read the su- 
perscription : “ To be delivered to my nephew, 
Jacques Mouginot.” There is no longer room 
for doubt ; my presentiments did not deceive 
me, and my unhappy uncle has ended his days ! 
With a trembling hand I break the seal. This 
is what Scipio Mouginot has to say to me : 

( ( My dear child— You will do me the justice 
to admit that I have struggled with all my 
might against the ill-luck that for some time past 
has attended all my enterprises. For a moment 
I thought that I was about to win the battle, 
but Fate willed otherwise. So long as my pres- 
ence here was necessary to others I stood firm 
at my post ; now, our dear Alice is in heaven, 
Mme. Clemence has her daily bread assured to 
her and you, thanks to your powerful Russian, 
are in a position to create for yourself an honor- 
able and respected future ; consequently there 
is nothing to keep me longer in this old worn- 
out world of routine and prejudice and can obey 
with a clear conscience the inclination that calls 
me away to a younger and a richer continent. I 
have sold the stock and good-will of the Garden 
of Armida and the purchaser will take posses- 
sion to-morrow. As for me, I have decided to 
shift my musket to the other shoulder, and, 
shaking the dust from my feet, to slip my cable 
for America, the land of freedom and magnifi- 
cent enterprises. When you read these lines 
the Marseilles mail boat will be bearing me 
away to a port where I shall find a berth on the 


254 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


steamer for New York, and once there I am 
convinced that I shall have no trouble in restor- 
ing’ my shattered fortune and that I shall return 
to you some day with well-filled pockets and a 
face of conscious rectitude. While awaiting* 
the mutual joy of our meeting* at some future 
day, dear friend, work ; you are young — be 
yours “ the long hopes and vast imaginings ! ” 
Be mindful of my old device : Labor emus ! and 
rest assured, dear Jacques, that, whatever dis- 
tance part us, you will always have the affec- 
tion and best wishes of your faithful and de- 
voted uncle, Scipio Mouginot.” 

I am at the same time amazed and disgusted 
by this letter. So, while I was tenderly lament- 
ing my uncle’s hard fate, while I was picturing 
him to myself as a desperate man harboring 
projects of suicide, while I was working myself 
up to a fever of anxiety, he was concocting this 
lame and trivial apology for his shameless 
flight, untouched by any feeling of remorse that 
he was leaving an eighteen-year-old nephew* 
alone and unfriended in a strange city ! The 
past year has served to cure me of many of my 
illusions regarding Scipio Mouginot, but this is 
the last straw that breaks the camel’s back ; 
the scales fall from my eyes at the thought of 
such utter selfishness and cold-bloodedness. I 
call to mind my good Grandma Pechoin’s ideas 
concerning him, and I feel that they are more 
than justified. Yes, the excellent old lady was 
right : Scipio’s follies are ahvavs more, prejudi- 
cial to others than to himself, and he never fails 
to arrange matters so that he shall come out of 
the puddle dry -footed. 

“ After all,” I reflect, suddenly coming back 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


255 


to myself and my affairs, “ I may as well bring 
my lamentations to an end : it won’t mend 
matters should I keep them up till morning. 
Now that I am abandoned to my own re- 
sources I must make up my mind what I am 
going to do. And first of all I must clear out 
from here, since my uncle has sold everything 
and the new occupant is to take possession of 
the premises to-morrow.” 

I descend to the shop, and, shaking the 
slumbering attendant to consciousness, inter- 
rogate him ; he confirms my uncle’s state- 
ment and informs me that the Garden of 
Armida is sold to a merchant of Marseilles, 
who proposes . to start business there as a 
dealer in olive oil and Southern fruits. I hurry 
off at once and hire an extremely modest room 
in a house in the Rue des Poucettes, then pro- 
ceed to move the few goods and chattels that 
call me owner. I stuff books and clothes hap- 
hazard into my trunk, I bid a last farewell to 
the little chamber where Alice breathed her 
last, I take from the wall as a souvenir a 
small oval mirror that she was accustomed to 
make use of and in which I imagine that I can 
still see her pale face reflected ; then, sorrow- 
fully leaving the scene of so much suffering, 
I start forth and reach my new domicile just 
at nightfall. 

The room, small and low of ceiling, has the 
wretched, cheerless look that is common, to 
cheap lodging-houses. Its windows face the 
quai, and on the lonely beach beyond the road- 
way I can hear the swash of the sea as the 


256 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


waves roll in and break. The monotonous, 
somnolent sound, which commences and runs 
along the pebbly shore like a long-drawn plaint, 
has no soothing in it for my sad soul. As Os- 
car Fencherot would say, I feel nostalgic shud- 
ders passing o’er me. I would wish to be gone 
from this city of pleasure with which I have 
nothing in common and where I no longer have 
a home. But whither am I to turn for shelter ? 
Where am I to find the domestic fireside 
that I so greatly miss, the tender friendship 
and consolation of which I am in such deep 
need? Paris, where my only acquaintances 
have been Bohemians like the Cornevins, self- 
ish egotists like Scipio, or victims like Mme. 
Clemence — Paris has no attractions for me ; on 
the contrary, I feel a species of repugnance for 
it. Then my thoughts revert, with a regret- 
ful feeling in my heart, to my dear little village 
of Villotte, where every one was known to me 
and every one a friend. In the darkness of the 
night the peaceful lullaby of the sea gently 
raises my soul and transports it as in a dream 
to the lowly valleys of the Barrois — where the 
hillsides are covered with a broidery of vine- 
yards, where Petit- Jure woods are green, and 
the paper mill of Jeand’heurs reposes in tran- 
quillity beneath the great trees of the park. I 
feel myself seized and carried away by an over- 
mastering desire to revisit the scenes of my 
boyhood, to be once more in that land of fog 
and lush, rank growths, so different from this 
sunlit, sunburnt provence, whose joyous lumi- 
nosity contrasts too sharply now with my poor 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


25 ? 


wrung*, aching feelings. I do not question my- 
self as to what I am to do when I am once 
down there, or at what door I am to knock, or 
how I shall be received. I only reflect what 
a delicious satisfaction it will be to bathe once 
more as of old in the cool stream, to gaze again 
upon the old familiar faces of men and things ; 
I yield to that imperious instinct that bids the 
stricken deer return to his covert to die, and 
firmly resolve to return to Villotte at the ear- 
liest moment possible. 

Before carrying this project into execution, 
however, I have to devise ways and means of 
providing for the cost of the journey, for the 
expense of Alice’s burial has exhausted my 
small capital. I therefore conclude to continue 
my secretarial functions at M. Nogaroff’s un- 
til such time as I shall have amassed a suffi- 
cient fund. In this way six weeks drag slowly 
on, during which almost all my £ime is spent 
at the villa of the Russian gentleman. I spend 
scarcely anything, for M. Nogaroff, in order 
that he may have the utmost benefit of my 
services, gives me my breakfast and dinner. 
I allow myself only that which I cannot dis- 
pense with. I save up my pennies like a miser, 
and about the end of Maj r I find myself with a 
sufficiently well-filled purse to permit me to 
think of preparing for my journey. Then, too, 
it is time to be flitting, for the season is ended 
and the pleasure-seeking tourists are dispers- 
ing like swallows at the approach of winter. 
My Russian, it is true, has conceived an infatu- 
ated liking for me and proposes to take me with 


258 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


him to Moscow, but I decline the flattering 4 offer. 
He pays me the balance due me, and we part 
on excellent terms with each other. When I 
have paid all my outstanding* bills I find# I 
have three hundred francs remaining*. I go to 
the cemetery to pay a parting* visit. I arrange 
with the gardener to keep Alice's grave in 
order ; then, having deposited my last tribute, 
a bunch of roses, on it, I pursue my way city- 
ward, sadly enough, down the Rue du Chateau. 

On the following morning at an early hour I 
am at the starting-place of the diligence and 
climb to my seat on the roof of the lumbering 
vehicle. The driver gathers up the reins, gives 
his leaders a flick of the whip, and presently 
we are rolling amid clouds of dust along the 
road that leads to the capital. 

The way is long from Nice to Villotte. I 
shall not weary the reader with the incidents 
of the journey, my nights spent in railway cars 
or primitive, •uncomfortable stage-coaches, my 
compulsory stoppages at Marseilles, Dijon and 
Langres, or my ingenious devices for traveling 
at the smallest possible modicum of expense. 
During the entire trip I am anxiously cogitat- 
ing on what my course is to be when I finally 
arrive at my little town. Shall I go directly on 
to Jeand’heurs, or shall I stop and present my- 
self and my humiliation at the Mouginot- 
Pechoin’s establishment ? The hoarse breath- 
ing of the locomotive and the tinkling of the 
little bells on the horses’ collars form a monot- 
onous refrain accompanying the engrossing 
question that keeps continually jigging it 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 259 

through my brain and will not down : Shall I, 
or shall I not, go to my uncle Victor’s ? The 
prospect of the visit has nothing alluring in it. 
And still, now that I am returning to the place, 
it seems to me no more than right that I should 
go and see my former guardian, if only to inform 
him of this last prank of his brother’s and let 
him know that henceforth he is dispensed from 
paying the quarterly subsidy for my board and 
lodging. I know not what to do, and when at 
last on a fine evening in June the way-train de- 
posits me at Villotte station between seven and 
eight o’clock, I have reached no determination. 

The town appears to me to have changed 
considerably since I saw it last. Houses have 
gone up in the vacant fields around the station, 
and among them is a staring inn, magnilo- 
quently styled: Hotel de VWuivers. I bend 
my steps toward its door on leaving the sta- 
tion, engage a room, and having first washed 
the dust and cinders from my face, go down 
into the street. Twilight is descending on the 
scene ; the sidewalks, where a man is running 
to and fro with his torch lighting the gas- 
lamps, are in semi-darkness. Crossing the new 
bridge that connects the station with the town 
and lands me on the Quai des Gravieres, I steer 
my course, still only half decided, for the abode 
of the Mouginot-Pechoins. I stop to listen to 
the plashing of the little stream as it speeds 
rippling under the arches of the Notre-Dame 
bridge and to the foliage of the poplars rust- 
ling in the evening breeze ; the sounds fall on 
my ear like the voices of old friends ; I traverse 


260 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


the dark and malodorous passage of the Corps- 
de-l’Huis. Nearly all the shops are closed; 
the quarter seems to be composing* itself to 
slumber in the fast-fading light. Alone my 
uncle Victor’s drug store casts abroad the 
ruddy glare of its gas-lights and the blue and 
yellow fires of its great globes of crystal on the 
gathering obscurity of the street. 

My irresolution increases as I approach the 
door. “ There is no hurry/’ I say to myself, 
and by way of gaining time assure myself that 
the family are probably at supper and it will 
look better for me to wait until they have fin- 
ished their repast ; they might attribute ulterior 
designs to me should I drop in just as they are 
sitting down at table. The street is nearly 
deserted, and besides that I don’t much care 
if I do attract the attention of the neighbors ; 
I have grown stouter since my departure from 
Villotte and am so changed as not to fear rec- 
ognition. By loitering before the shop for a 
while I can watch those within at my ease and 
get an idea how the land lies. 

Yes, they are at supper. As the evening is 
very warm the sash of the window opening into 
the pharmacy has been raised, and through the 
aperture I obtain a distinct view of a good bit 
of the dining-room, which is lighted by a lamp 
with a green shade. I catch glimpses of Mme. 
Mouginot-Peehoin’s severe profile, Aristide’s 
proboscidian nose and the revolving arms of 
Lawyer Jacobi, who doubtless is laying down 
the law as usual. Men and material objects 
alike are unchanged in physiognomy ; it seems 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


261 


no longer ago than yesterday that Arsene Ca- 
mus and I left Villotte together and went to 
Tremont. The shop retains its ancient coldly 
methodical appearance ; the stock-in-trade is 
arranged in the same gold-labeled drawers in 
accordance with the nature of the drugs. I 
recognize the shelf allotted to the alcoholic 
preparations, that of the herbs and floral medi- 
caments, and that of the dried fruits, whence 
I used to purloin an occasional date or'fig in the 
old days ; the earthenware jars are there, too, 
shaped like cinerary urns, in which pomades 
and ointments are kept. The members of the 
household are equally unchanged. Were I to 
enter the room at this moment I feel morally 
certain that I should be welcomed by the same 
old sarcasms from madame, the same ill-nat- 
ured laughter from Aristide, the same pre- 
tentious oration from M. Jacobi. Matters 
would be even worse in all probability, for the 
manner of my flight from Jeand’heurs, the fact 
that I cast my fortunes in with Scipio Mouginot 
and the news of my uncle’s latest financial ex- 
ploit cannot have predisposed the people of the 
pharmacy in my favor ; it would be as much 
as ever if I could count on old Mme. Pechoin’s 
favor. And supposing they should be charita- 
bly enough inclined to grant me a place at 
their board and fireside, they certainly would 
not kill the fatted calf for me and I should have 
to eat humble-pie for a long time in order to 
earn my pardon. I have a presentiment how 
it will be ; brutal snubs from Uncle Victor, 
sneers and gibes from Aristide, wise saws with- 


262 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


out end from Lawyer Jacobi. I know what my 
disposition is : I shall never be able to endure 
their taunts and reproaches with any degree of 
patience ; my choler will rise, I shall give them 
as good as they send, and the fat will all be in 
the fire again. Candidly, with such a result in 
view, is it worth my while to cross the thresh- 
old of that inhospitable house ? My stubborn 
pride and sense of self-respect answer that it is 
not, and I remain standing on the sidewalk, 
weighing the pros and cons. A customer enters 
the shop just at this moment and Uncle Victor 
comes out to wait on him. His face is more 
phlegmatic than ever, his lips more tightly 
shut, his eye more stony. He casts one of his 
freezing looks toward the door ; I imagine that 
he scents me and is on the point of singing out : 
“ You will never be anything but a dunce ! 99 

The idea of going up to that dreadful Uncle 
Victor and saying “ Good-evening ! ” to him, 
terrifies me and decides the question in the neg- 
ative — no, I will not enter the house ! I turn 
abruptly on my heel, and hurrying my steps as 
if in fear to be pursued, make the best of my 
way out of the Rue du Bourg and return to my 
hotel. 

On reaching there I order a frugal supper, 
and while eating my cold veal consider what is 
best for me to do. There is but one refuge left 
me, now that I have returned to my old home 
and cannot bring myself to become a member 
of Uncle Victor’s household, and that is 
Jeand’heurs. There, at all events, I shall find 
kind friends. It may gall my vanity a little to 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


263 


knock for admission at their door after having 
continuously rejected their advances, but I can 
rely on their affectionate indulgence and shall 
have no mortifications to endure in that quar- 
ter. Yes, to morrow, soon as it is dawn, I will 
strike out and foot it to Jeand’heurs, and next 
morning at peep of day I am ascending the 
road that leads to the woods of the upper 
town. 

Up to this time the excitement of the journey 
and my uncertain frame of mind as to my fut- 
ure domicile have operated to detract from the 
pleasure of my home-coming, but now I enjoy 
to the full the delight of “ seeing all and recog- 
nizing all I see.” I listen with a charmed ear 
to the bells sounding the angelus with their old 
familiar voices, I look with a friendly eye on 
the antique, quaintly carved fronts of the 
dwellings of the upper town. When I enter 
the woods, where the birds of spring have not 
yet ceased singing, the strains of my old 
acquaintances, the nightingales and the red- 
wings, cheer my heart with a sensation of glad- 
ness to which it has long been a stranger. 

The forest exhales delicious odors ; the fra- 
grance of the wild honeysuckle mingles with 
the penetrating breath of the sweet -woodruff, 
and these emanations from my native soil seem 
to me sweeter a hundred-fold than all the bou- 
quets of Nice. The beeches and witch-elms in 
their fresh spring suits of tender green have a 
friendly air of kinship that I have never found 
in the carobs and cork trees of the Cornice 
road with their unchanging, metallic foliage. 


264 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


Here, the sentiment that predominates over all 
else is that of home. On coming* to the edg*e of 
the wood the plains of Combles and Veel sud- 
denly appear before me, g*ently undulating* in 
the clear morning* lig*ht. 

Here is Tremont, just awaking* to the mur- 
mur of its whispering* stream. Here is Renes- 
son with its factory, all a-hum with the noise of 
the busy spindles, and here is the black path of 
slag* that conducts to the furnaces of Jean- 
d’heurs. I cross the park of the Chateau, 
where all is peaceful quiet and the thick-topped 
chestnut trees are mirrored in the bosom of the 
sleepy Saulx. Yet a few steps further and I 
shall meet the path that ends at the door of the 
paper mill. My heart thumps violently against 
my ribs, and an overpowering* sense of shame 
oppresses me as I reflect that soon I shall have 
to confess what a horrible mess I have made of 
my affairs. 

Now I can hear the water pouring* over the 
dam and the cocks crowing* in the b£tmyjj,x*(j 
Afresh fit of impatience seizes me and I start 
off on a run for the house, where Cousin De- 
lorme’s dog*s receive me at the gate as a 
stranger and an intruder, barking furiously. 

A female figure, clad in bright attire, comes 
out upon the stoop, attracted by the clamors of 
the pack — there can be no mistake, it is my 
cousin Zelie. Her hands appear to clutch the 
guard-rail, as if her first emotion of surprise 
were too much for her ; then she braces herself 
and stands motionless, seemingdy wonderin 0 * 
who the stranger can be that enters their 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


265 


courtyard at such an hour. And yet she has a 
good pair of eyes and must have recognized me 
as I did her. This coldness on Zelie's part dis- 
concerts me and I pause, doubtful whether to 
advance or not. Then she turns and re-enters 
the vestibule, and I hear her cry, in a voice 
trembling* with emotion: 

“ Papa, come here, quick ! It’s Jacques ! ” 

A moment later I am shaking hands with 
Cousin Delorme. 

“ So, here 3 T ou are, you vagabond ! ” the 
cousin laughingly exclaims; “ come, give your. 
cousines a kiss.” 

“ You have come back to us at last ! Oh, 
how glad I am ! ” says Zelie. 

“ You are just in the nick of time,” M. De- 
lorme continues; “we are about to see what 
Mine. Delorme has given us to eat this morn- 
ing, and- you shall have something to stay 
your stomach until dinner.” 

He pushed me before him toward the dining- 
room, but before breaking bread with them I 
wish to inform him briefly of my situation and 
murmur confusedly in his ear : 

“Cousin, you were right in what you said 
to me two years ago. Things have not turned 
out well, and I am come back to you, like the 
prodigal son — ” 

He interrupts : 

“ It is well ; I thought as much. But sit 
down and eat your breakfast. We 'will talk 
the matter over afterward.” 


266 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


CHAPTER XVI. 

After breakfast M. Delorme and I betake 
ourselves to the garden, where, perambulating 
the alley of gooseberry bushes that skirts the 
Saulx, we have a lengthy conversation. I tell 
him everything: our trip to Nice,* how the 
Garden of Armida flourished and declined, the 
death of my little friend and the manner of 
Scipio Mouginot’s flitting. He listens to my 
narrative patiently, and when I have con- 
cluded : 

, “ I am not in the least surprised by what 

you tel! me,” he says with a shrug of the shoul- 
ders. “ At the time of my visit to you in the 
Rue de Conde I predicted that your uncle’s 
grand schemes would come to grief. You have 
learned a" lesson early in life which will make 
you think twice hereafter before you relinquish 
the substance for the shadow. The position 
that I have it in my power to offer you is not 
a brilliant one ; your duties will consist in su- 
perintending the assorting of the rags, and now 
and 1 then you will lend a hand to help me with 
the correspondence. In the course of a few 
years you will be competent to fill a foreman’s 
place. Does my proposition suit you ? ” 

I thank Cousin Delorme heartily, assuring 
him that I am entirely cured of my vainglori- 
ous aspirations and desire nothing better than 
to earn an honest living. 

“Then that is settled,” he replies; “I will 
write to M. Mouginot-Pechoin to-night and tell 
him of Scipio’s flight and that you have taken 
up your quarters at the paper mill. Also, as 
you are now past eighteen years old, we will 
petition the judge at Villotte to declare your 
minority ended. To-morrow you will enter on 
your duties at the mill, but before putting off 
the old skin for the new and beginning a new 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


267 


existence I want to say a word or two to you 
for your guidance in life. In the first place, 
dismiss the notion that chance has anything to 
do with our affairs ; it has not, arid the expres- 
sion ‘ ill-luck ’ is but a form of speech that men 
employ to cloak their own ineptitude. Destiny 
does not make the man, it is the man who 
makes his destiny, as the spider weaves her 
web. Next, what is gained in speed is lost in 
power, and those who, after the manner of 
your uncle Scipio, cherish dreams of fortune 
coming to them as if by miracle are either 
dupes or knaves. Success is attained Only by 
patient effort, repeated day by day. Impress 
it firmly on your mind that those fortur.es 
which, like mushrooms, are the growth of a 
single morning, are always of brief duration. 
And now go find your cousins, and re?t to-day 
that you may work with a stouter neart to- 
morrow.” 

The honest fellow’s words give me a sensa- 
tion of cheer and comfort. I return to the 
house and proceed to make myself at home in 
m} T little chamber of other days, which has 
been aired and put in order a,s if by magic. 
The boughs of the tall trees in the park sway 
to and fro before my open window as if waving 
me a greeting, and a great bunch of roses in an 
earthen jar that Zelie has brought in and 
placed on my table fill the apartment with a de- 
licious odor of summer. On going downstairs 
to join the family at the midday dinner I find 
my fair cousin awaiting me in the hall ; she has 
made some changes in her attire since morning, 
and I am astonished to discover in her a grace 
and beauty that I was far from expecting. 
The half-grown county girl, with rustic man- 
ners and ill-cut, vulgar gowns, is replaced by a 
healthy-looking, robust young woman, whose 
plain and scrupulously neat clothing allows her 
freedom of movement and at the same time sets 


268 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


off the flexibility of her figure and the agree- 
able curves of bust and shoulders. Her chest- 
nut hair, arranged without any attempt at 
style, falls over her low, broad forehead in little 
rebellious curls, which form a very pleasing and 
harmonious accompaniment to the clear, blue 
eyes and frank, ingenuous face, rathen plenti- 
fully spotted with freckles. 

She seats herself at my side, fills my plate 
with the choicest morsels, and brings all her 
fund of cheerful gayety to bear to amuse me 
and make me feel at ease. As soon as we have 
drunk our coffee she puts on a hat of rough 
straw, and turning to me with a smile, says : 

“ If you are not too tired we will go and re- 
visit some of the old familiar scenes .' 5 

I assent with great pleasure, and we traverse 
the little village of Lisle-en-Rigault, afterward 
ascending the stream as far as Ville-sur-Saulx. 
Now my gaze rests with emotion on the 
familiar, unassuming landscape, and it seems 
to me that I have foregathered with old 
friends. 

“ There is nothing changed, is there ? ” ex- 
claims Zelie, who is observing me to see how I 
am affected. “ It is as if you had left Jean- 
d’heurs but yesterday — 5 ’ 

“ The country is the same, cousin, but still 
there is a change here. You are a great deal 
taller and have grown amazingly pretty since 
I went away.” 

“ Be still, you flatterer ! I know all about it, 
and am not such a ninny as to consider myself 
pretty. I am not to be mentioned in the same 
breath as your little friend Alice.” 

I look at Zelie with an expression of sorrow- 
ful surprise. 

Alas, my dear cousin, } r ou were ohty too 
correct in your predictions. Alice was con- 
sumptive; she is dead.” 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


269 


ee Ah, merciful Heavens ! Forgive me, 
Jacques, if I have caused you pain.” 

I look at her again, seeking in her eyes that 
kindly sympathy that has such power of heal- 
ing for the afflicted, but am astonished, almost 
shocked indeed, to see no trace there of the pity 
on which I had been counting. I cannot under- 
stand it ; it occurs to me that if she displays 
less emotion than I had reason to expect it is 
because I was too brief and curt in informing 
her of the loss from which my heart is bleeding 
still, and thereon I proceed to place before her 
every most touching circumstance of Alice’s 
illness and death. But I fail to perceive 
that Zelie is listening impatiently, and that 
while I go talking on and on her fingers are 
plucking nervously at a stack of wheat gathered 
in an adjoining field. 

She turns to retrace her steps, and when I 
have at last come to the end of my relation my 
cousin sighs and observes : 

£ * Doubtless it is sad to leave the world so 
young, but it must have been a great comfort 
to her on her deathbed to know that she was 
loved sp fondly up to the very end.” 

It was no exaggeration on my part when I 
confessed ingenuously to my cousin that the dear 
departed still had entire possession of my 
thoughts. My heart sorrows for Alice gone as 
it did on the first day of her loss ; her pale, thin 
face and big brown eyes, bright with inward 
fever, are constantly before me, I hear the an- 
guished tones of her voice pleading for life ; 
and I cannot accustom myself to the idea that 
we are to meet no more on earth. During the 
first few days of my employment at the mill 
this posthumous tenderness for the little angel 
who has spread her wings and left us for a bet- 
ter world renders me inattentive to my duties 
and draws down on me kindly admonitions from 
my cousin. However, toil is a most potent com- 


270 MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 

forter; I am far from forgetting 'little Alice, 
but imperceptibly my grief is lulled to slumber; 
when I think of her now it is not with feelings 
of bitterness, but with a gentle melancholy, 
similar to that which we experience at the 
sound of sweet bells rung at eventide amid the 
silent fields. 

What contributes most, together with my 
occupation, toward alleviating my sorrow is 
having my cousin Zelie near me. Mile. De- 
lorme’s kindness and wholesome good-humor 
act on me as does the salubrious air of the up- 
lands on the convalescent whose strength has 
been wasted by long confinement to the sick- 
room. The more I see of Zelie the more do I 
appreciate the quickness of her intelligence, the 
frankness of her disposition and the peculiar 
charm that resides in her expressive counte- 
nance. As Alice’s image grows fainter the liv- 
ing personality of Zelie begins to occupy a more 
prominent position in my daily life. Six months 
have not rolled over my head since I took up 
my quarters at Jeand’heurs, and I perceive 
that my boyish affection for my cousin is trans- 
muted into a deeper and more tender sentiment. 

As I become more and more convinced of the 
insidious change that is going on within me 
anxious scruples take possession of my mind. 

I feel that I am falling in love with Zelie, and 
I ask myself if that love will not result in un- 
pleasant consequences for me. Penniless 
orphan as I am, a common day-laborer in the 
mill, received and sheltered by the kind De- * 
lormes almost from charity, have I the right 
to raise my eyes to Zelie ? When one is nine- 
teen years old the strongest arguments that 
reason can adduce are powerless to restrain 
those sentiments that rise in our hearts as the 
sap rises in the trees beneath the warm sun of 
April. The very utmost that I can force my- 
self to do, by sheer effort of the will, is to dis- 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


271 



semble my passion, so that Zelie may not divine 
my secret. 

But my good resolutions are all taken to no 
purpose, for she seems to have no idea how the 
case stands with me. She is as cordial and af- 
fectionate as ever, hut with the least shade of a 
reserve that I never saw in her before. When 
we go out to walk together of a Sunday, which 
we do infrequently, our intercourse is not 
marked by that frank familiarity, those friendly 
confidences, that characterized our tete-a-tetes 
before my departure for Paris and even, at a 
later period, at Scipio Mouginot’s. 

We are walking together one May morning 
when chance directs our steps to the little 
wood where once, in one of my vacations, I had 
my finger nipped by a bird that I took incau- 
tiously from the snare, and when Zelie came so 
generously to my rescue. The chaffinches are 
piping to one another in the copses, the leaves 
of the hazel bushes are beginning to unfold 
and a balmy odor of spring pervades the air. 
I recognize the place, and turning to my 
cousin, who is gazing absently into the spring : 

“ We have been here before, cousin,” I say 
to her. “ Do you remember the occasion ? ” 

“ It may be as you say,” she replies with a 
blush ; “ we went pretty much everywhere dur- 
ing the vacation that you spent at jeand’heurs, 
but this spot reminds me of nothing in particu- 
lar.” 

“And yet the place has its story : we had 
snared a bluejay here, and the bird tore my 
finger with its beak. I have not forgotten the 
way you dressed the hurt.” 

“I had not given you credit for having so 
good a memory,” she replies, a little tartly; 
“ we have given up setting snares for the little 
birds now, and you are not likely to have a 
similar accident happen you again.” Whereon 


272 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


she turns 'on her heel and leaves the wood with 
an air of displeasure. 

There can be no doubt but that her intention 
was to give me to understand that our old-time 
intimacy is ended for good and all, and that I 
am to forget our bygone days of comradeship 
and remember only the distance that parts us 
now. She, wrapping herself in her cloak of 
assumed reserve, and I, torturing myself every 
instant of my life to appear other than I am — 
we both do our best, as if of malice afore- 
thought, to aggravate the misunderstanding 
that is building up a wall of ice between us. 

In the meantime weeks, months, years are 
passing. M. Delorme is satisfied with me, and 
when on my twenty-first birthday a bottle of 
old wine is brought in at dinner to celebrate 
my coming of age, he informs me that one of 
the foremen is about to leave the works and I 
am to have the place thus vacated. 

Zelie \s verging on her nineteenth year ; she 
is more amiable and prepossessing than ever, 
without the slightest trace of coquetry. As 
she is an only daughter, and as her good looks, 
pleasing manners and sterling qualities are 
known far and wide throughout the country, 
there is no lack of suitors for her hand. Great- 
ly to my surprise, and no less to my satisfac- 
tion, I may say, she rejects them all, one after 
another, alleging various specious reasons. 

One winter day, just as we are about to seat 
ourselves at table for the midday meal, the 
postman comes to the door and hands in M. 
Delorme’s mail. A black-bordered envelope, 
half hidden among the numerous letters and 
circulars, is the first to attract the superintend- 
ent’s attention. He breaks the seal, reads it 
rapidly and hands it to me. 

“ Bless me ! ” he exclaims, “ that is a bad bit 
of news to reach us just as we are sitting down 
to our soup. Your uncle Mouginot-Tupin is 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


273 


dead, Jacques — carried off by an attack of pneu- 
monia. You did not know him very well, and 
his death won’t be a great affliction to you, but 
after all he was your uncle, and we must observe 
the proprieties. The funeral is to-morrow.” 

The next morning, just on the stroke of ten, 
we drive into the upper town and stop before 
the house of mourning, the front of which is 
sumptuously draped with black, and enter the 
darkened drawing-room where the relatives 
and friends of the deceased are collected. My 
aunt Mouginot-Tupin, more impressive than 
ever in her voluminous widow’s weeds, rises 
and salutes majestically whenever a per- 
son of note comes into the room, then she 
sinks back into her fauteuil and applies her 
handkerchief to her eyes. Cousin Delorme and 
I have to content ourselves as best we may 
with a nod of the head, so slight as barely to 
be perceptible. Every one gives us the cold 
shoulder. The announcement of the clergy- 
man’s arrival comes opportunely to relieve us 
from this disagreeable situation. We follow 
the coffin down the stairs and take our place 
behind Uncle Victor, at the head of the cortege 
whose destination is the church. The building is 
crowded with dignitaries, civic, ecclesiastical 
and military, and the voices of the singers float 
on the air accompanied by the low, muffled 
tones of the great organ. It is evident that 
the widow, assured that sjte is to inherit all the 
property of her deceased husband, has deter- 
mined not to skimp his obsequies. On emerg- 
ing from the cemetery, however, where we are 
compelled to listen to an interminable discourse 
delivered by Lawyer Jacobi, I see Maitre Les- 
paillaudel, the notary of the upper town, ap- 
proach Uncle Victor with a mysterious air. A 
whispered colloquy ensues between them ; then 
they call up Cousin Delorme and the three con- 
fer together gravely. *•* 


274 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


ff There is something* new, it seems, ” M. De- 
lorme whispers when he comes back to the place 
where I am* standing ; “ your uncle Palamede 
has left a will, and we are requested to be pres- 
ent at the house of the deceased at two 
o'clock.’ ' 

To our surprise the widow is complaining an- 
grily that her poor Palamede ” should have 
manifested so little confidence in her, and we 
learn thatM. Mouginot-Tupin, quite unbeknown 
to his better half, has made a will and deposited 
it in M. DespaillaudeTs office for safekeeping, 
but that this will, in accordance with the ex- 
pressed wishes of the deceased, is only to be 
opened in presence of his brothers and their 
lawful heirs. To sum it all up briefly, it is de- 
cided that, as Scipio Mouginot is out of the coun- 
try and no one knows his address, steps shall be 
taken forthwith to ascertain his present place of 
residence, and that until his return matters shall 
remain in the same condition that they are in 
now. 

In pursuance of this resolution, a few days 
later the following advertisement is to be seen 
on the fourth page of all the principal newspa- 
pers : 

“ M. Scipio Mouginot, whose last known place 
of residence was at ISTice, in the Rue Saint-Fran- 
cois-de-Paule, is requested to present himself 
with as little delay a&»possible, either in person * 
or by his lawfully constituted attorney, at the 
office of M. Lespaillaudel, notary at Villotte, in 
order to be present at the opening of the will of 
his brother, the late Palamede Mouginot, de- 
ceased the 12th day of January, 1862.” 

Two months go by without my uncle Scipio 
giving any sign of his being in the land of the 
living, and we are all beginning to fear that the 
luckless man has himself met an obscure death 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


275 


in some far distant city of the New World. We 
are sitting* around the stove one very stormy 
evening* m March, warming* ourselves and wait- 
ing for supper to he announced, when the bell 
rings, the dogs set up a loud barking, and a 
servant informs M. Delorme that there is a man 
at the door who wishes to speak to him. 

“ Tell him to come in,” my cousin says to 
Zelie. 

The door opens again and admits a stranger, 
heavily bearded and rather poorly clad, so far 
as we can discern in the semi-darkness of the 
ill-lighted room. 

“ Uncle Scipio ! ” 

The hands that he extends to us are trem- 
bling visibly. M. Delorme maintains an atti- 
tude of cold reserve, and even I respond with 
no great cordiality to my relative’s embrace. 

“ Monsieur Delorme, I come to you as came 
Themistocles to Artaxerxes, King of the Per- 
sians. I have crossed the Atlantic twice, I 
have experienced the tempests of adversity and 
the storms of ocean, but nothing has been able 
to daunt my courage or destroy my hopeful- 
ness. I should still be out there, tugging at 
the oar, had I not learned that my relatives 
had need of me. Enterprises of brightest 
promise I abandoned incomplete, and I come 
with all speed, poor but with a name as ever 
stainless, and my first visit is for you.” 

“I feel deeply honored,” M. Delorme curtly 
replies, “ but why did you not stop first at 
Villotte ? Have you not heard of your brother 
Palamede’s death?” 

“Oh, yes, I read Notary Le^paillaudel’s ad- 
vertisement in the New York Herald and took 
passage on the first steamer. But I wanted to 
thank you for the hospitality you have tem- 
porarily afforded my nephew— I desired to em- 
brace this dear child once more.” 

1 am again subjected to his embrace, am 


276 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


again strained to the pepper-and-salt jacket ; 
then my uncle, quite unabashed, takes a chair 
and holds his wet boots against the stove. 

“ Seeing that you are here, M. Scipio Mougi- 
not,” M. Delorme coldly replies, “ we will try 
to find you a place to sleep. We were just 
about to sit down to supper, and my wife will 
arrange a place for you. Do the people of Vil- 
lotte know of your return ? ” 

“ Yes,” Scipio negligently replies, “ I stopped 
and notified M. Lespaillaudel as I came along. 
The will is to be opened day after to-morrow.” 

“ So much the better; then we shall know at 
last what disposition the late M. Palamede has 
made of his property. Heh, heh ! Master 
Scipio, if you should happen to be down in the 
will for something it would beat the Castro 
Galleons enterprise all hollow and you would 
not have to go around hunting up a new vein.” 

“ The new vein is found already ! ” exclaims 
Scipio, drawing himself up with an air of con- 
fidence, “and if there is anything coming to me 
under the will the money will be employed in 
working it. I do not intend to die without 
letting the world know my capacity. I have 
an idea that is worth a fortune, and it was that 
I might talk it over with Jacques that I came 
straight to Jeand’heurs.” 

You should see the -look of mingled alarm 
and aversion that Zelie casts on Scipio Mougi- 
not. If my cousin’s blue eyes had in them the 
potentiality of a voltaic pile I do not think that 
Uncle Scipio would be put to the trouble of 
looking for another vein : he would be blasted, 
annihilated. * 


CHAPTER XVII. 

The following morning Uncle Scipio expresses 
a desire to take a look over the paper mill. 
When we come to the storerooms he touches a 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


277 


bale of rags with the toe of his boot and negli- 
gently asks : 

“ What does that contain ? ” 

“ Why, rags, of course,” the cousin answers, 
“ that go to make the pulp.” 

“What ! ” he cries, “you don’t mean to tell 
me that you still make paper out of rags ? ” 

“Certainly we do, Monsieur Mouginot ; it is 
the only material I know of on which we can de- 
pend to produce a first-class article.” 

“ But you are fifty years behind the age ! 
Rag paper — why, it goes back to the days when 
the industry was in its infancy ! If you wish, 
Monsieur De,lorme, I will impart to you a pro- 
cess for manufacturing paper that can’t be beat 
from a material that will cost 3 r ou next to 
nothing. And then, with only some slight 
alterations in your machinery, you will realize 
enormous profits.” 

“ I am very much obliged to you,” my cousin 
dryly answers, “but we prefer to make less 
money and turn out goods that we are not 
ashamed to acknowledge.” 

The afternoon is devoted to effecting the 
much-needed repairs to the traveler’s attire 
that he may be enabled to present himself not 
too discreditably in Mme. Mouginot-Tupin’s 
drawing-room. I take him over to Tremont, 
where the village barber makes short work 
with his American beard ; he has a clean shave 
on lips and chin, his hair is trimmed ; M. De- 
lorme lends him a full suit of black — coat, waist- 
coat and trousers — which the indefatigable lady 
of the house takes on herself to alter to his pro- 
portions, and the next morning we order out the 
carryall and start for Villotte. 

On entering the Mouginot-Tupin’s comfort- 
able salon we find there the notary, Uncle Vic- 
tor and the widow, seated in solemn state before 
the fireplace. The reception accorded us by M. 
Mouginot-Pechoin is of the most icy description. 


278 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


On the contrary, *Mme.' Mouginot-Tupin, who 
has always owned up to harboring a weakness 
for Scipio’s fine manners, graciously suffers her 
courteous kinsman to kiss her finger-tips and 
condescends to ask him to be seated. 

“ Since all are here who of right should be 
here,” says M. Lespaillaudel, taking from his 
portfolio a large envelope fastened with five 
seals of red wax, “ there is no reason, so far as 
I can see, why we should delay longer to make 
ourselves acquainted with the last wishes of my 
lamented client.” 

Amid a solemn silence he commences his read- 
ing in a low, thick voice. 

Palamede Mouginot, that puny, insignificant 
little snip of a man, who all his life long had 
trembled at the sound of his wife’s voice, sud- 
denly stands revealed to us in his true light. 
Like all weak and cringing natui ;s, he was 
spiteful and vindictive at heart. If he contin- 
ued to bear the yoke of Mme. Mouginot, nee 
Tupin, without a murmur, he was none the less 
amassing, somewhere in the depths of his abject 
soul, a fund of bitter resentment, and the means 
he had adopted to get even with his wife for her 
intolerable tyrann.y was to execute in profound 
secrecy the following remarkable will : 

“I, Palamede Mouginot, the subscriber to 
this instrument, being in unimpaired health, 
physical as well as mental, do declare this to be 
my last will and testament. 

“ Whereas I have never during life been ac- 
corded the privilege of calling my soul my own, 
it is my intention after death, so far as in me 
lies, to amend this condition of affairs. To this 
end I bequeath to my wife Nathalie Tupin (of 
Anglecourts), in remembrance of our long con- 
sociation : 

“ First, the sum of one thousand francs, to 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


279 


be expended in masses for the repose of which 
my soul stands in- such urgent need ; 

“ Secondly, all the laces, trinkets and various 
other finery that she compelled me to pay for 
during my lifetime, and, 

Thirdly, the Peerage of Lorraine and the 
Barrois, which constituted her favorite reading 
and will be found on one of the shelves m my 
library. 

“The residue of my estate to revert to my 
natural heirs, Scipio, Victor and Jacques Mou- 
ginot, in equal proportions, one-third to each. 

“ I appoint M. Lespaillaudel, notary at Vil- 
lotte, executor of this my will, and beg his ac- 
ceptance, in recompense for his trouble, of a 
diamond ring of the value of five hundred 
francs.” 

At the beginning of the reading the expres- 
sion on my aunt’s severely Roman countenance 
is one of indulgent curiosity, while both my 
uncles are manifestly ill at ease ; but when the 
notary comes to the concluding paragraphs the 
faces of Victor and Scipio mantle with ill- 
suppressed exultation. As for the lady, her 
stupefaction, rage and. humiliation are so great 
that they fairly take away her breath. 

“ It is a mystification ! ” she screams, bounc- 
ing up from her chair ; “ the poor man was not 
in possession of his faculties.” 

“ I do not agree with you there, madame,” 
my uncle Victor replies. “ On the contrary, I 
think that my brother acted very sensibly.” 

“You have reason to think so,” she retorts, 
“ seeing that you profit by your poor brother’s 
driveling lunacy. That will is an injustice ; I 
shall contest it ; I will invoke the law — ” 

“ I advise you not to go to law, madame,” 
the notary interrupts. “You would lose your 
case.” 

Scipio considers it his duty to say something. 


280 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


“ Dear lady,” he declares, puckering his lips 
into a persuasive smile, “ believe ine, I most 
sincerely regret what has occurred — ” 

“Enough, sir ! I desire none of your regrets 
— I bid you all good-day.” 

And she leaves the room with the air of an 
offended queen of tragedy, her long trail sweep- 
ing the floor behind her. 

We accompany the man of law to his office, 
where Scipio remains closeted with him, while 
M. Delorme and 1 make haste to return to 
Jeand’heurs. 

“Ladies,” he cries, exultantly, bursting into 
the dining-room, where Mme. Delorme and 
Zelie are engaged in mending the family linen, 
“ ladies, let me present to 3 T ou a capitalist ! 
Jacques is one of his uncle’s heirs, and steps 
into a tidy little fortune of sixty thousand 
francs. Give him joy of his good luck ! ” 

My cousin, kind Mme. Delorme, gives me a 
hearty embrace ; but Zelie, on the other hand, 
seems to be lacking in warmth. I tell myself 
that not only has she no thought of love for- 
me, but for some mysterious, unknown reason 
she has conceived a feeling of aversion. 

It is not until two days later that Scipio 
shows his face again. He has profited by his 
visit to Villotte to cast his skin, and is once 
more the brilliant, irresistible and self-assured 
Scipio whom I knew in the old Parisian days. 
Master Lespaillaudel, the notary, has evidently 
made him an advance, for he is equipped anew 
from top to toe : black frock-coat and trousers, 
dark-gra3 r overcoat and tall silk hat sur- 
rounded b3 T a deep band of crape. He has 
even succeeded in procuring somewhere a 
magnificent morocco portfolio, which he carries 
under his arm with conscious dignity- as he 
enters the room and deposits it in a conspicuous 
place upon a small table. 

At dinner his manner toward every one is 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


281 


courteous and charming* in the extreme, but it 
is me whom he selects above all the rest as the 
object of his blandishments. 

“ Isn't he getting* to be a handsome young* fel- 
low, hey?” he exclaims. “There is one of us 
who won’t discredit the name of Mouginot, at 
all events ! 

Although I am come to know my uncle Scipio 
pretty thoroughly by this time, still these enco- 
niums, with which I have not been surfeited in 
the past, titillate my self-love agreeably. All 
the Mouginots are vain ; it runs in the blood, 
and in this respect I am faithful to the family 
traditions. My foible reasserts itself under the 
pleasing influence of my uncle’s flatteries. I 
am not displeased to be complimented on my 
personal advantages, and consider that Scipio 
Mouginot is doing a verj^ handsome thing by me 
in singing my praises in Zelie’s presence. I have 
hopes that her hard heart will soften on hear- 
ing what a tremendous fellow I am and that 
she will put off her cruel indifference. Will my 
uncle’s superlatives and wheedling eulogies pro- 
duce the effect I am expecting from them ? I 
know not; but, at all events, they have not 
passed unnoticed. Zelie has raised her eyes from 
off her plate and is watching. Scipio’s perform- 
ance with anxious solicitude. 

As we are about to rise from table the latter 
turns to M. Delorme, who has intimated that I 
am to go back to the mill with him, and, dis- 
charging at him his most killing smile : 

“ My dear host,” he says, “allow me to de- 
prive you for a short time of our friend Jacques. 
I want to have a little talk with him about our 
family affairs, and, if you have no objection, 
will take him with me to the garden. I will 
restore him to you in an hour.” 

M. Delorme gives a nod of the head in token 
of assent and goes off alone in the direction of 
the works, while Scipio, slipping his arm through 


282 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


mine, passes out at the door opening* on the 
kitchen g*arden. I fail to notice that Zelie has 
risen at the same time as we and glided after 
us into an alley parallel to that in which we are 
slowly walking to and fro. 

“My dear child/’ he begins, “now that we 
are alone, we’ll make our talk brief and to the 
point. When, owing to circumstances over 
which I had no control, I was forced to leave 
my native land and become an exile, I told you 
that as soon as Fortune smiled on me once more 
I would return and be to you again a protector. 
That time is come, and I hasten to offer you a 
share in the glory and the profits of a most 
splendid enterprise — ” 

His exordium arouses my distrust, and look- 
ing at my uncle with the watchful air of a man 
who feels it necessary to be on his guard, I 
coldly ask : 

“What is it?” 

“ An idea of the greatest promise, which 
fructified in my brain the other morning as I 
was inspecting your works. I did not care to 
speak of it before Delorme, who is entirely a 
creature of routine. But with .you the case is 
different ; you are young, you are open to con- 
viction ; you will comprehend me. Listen, and 
follow me closely. The manufacture of paper 
from cotton or linen is the pons asinorum. and 
at the present price of rags no one can begin to 
make a living at it. If we would do a large 
business and make money rapidly we must look 
for a raw material that is abundant, is obtain- 
able at a minimum of cost, and will permit us 
to go into the market with our product and un- 
dersell all our competitors. Now, that raw ma- 
terial I have discovered — it is to be found in 
every land, in every clime ; its only cost is the 
exertion of stooping to gather it. It is the net- 
tle, the despised, common, every-da}' nettle ! 
My experience has taught me that for textile 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


283 


purposes it has no superior. N‘ ow you see my 
drift ! We start a company and build and 
equip an immense factory, which we keep run- 
ning with nettles, untold millions of nettles col- 
lected in France and the circumjacent countries. 
It will be killing two birds with one stone : we 
fill our warehouses and do a service to the agri- 
culturist. Not only will our material cost us 
nothing, but the peasants will pay us hand- 
somely for ridding them of a noxious weed that 
destro3 7 s the productiveness of their farms. 
What have you to say to that ? Isn’t it a 
stroke of genius ? Are there not millions in 
it?” 

I never fail to be dazed and stupefied by the 
kaleidoscopic variety of the images that this 
wonderful man evolves from his fertile brain 
and the rapidity with which he shifts them. 
For all that, however, I am not going to let 
him bamboozle me, and I cautiously make an- 
swer : 

“ That is a very fine scheme of yours, uncle ; 
but I prefer a bird in the hand to two in the 
bush. Moreover, it is out of the question 
that I should leave M. Delorme.” 

“ I know how attached you are to the De- 
lormes, and should hesitate to ask you to 
leave them temporarily were it not that your 
assistance is . absolutely indispensable to me. 
At the commencement of the business I must 
have a man on whom I can rely implicitly — 
one who knows all the ins and outs of the 
manufacturing processes, and you are the only 
one I know of, Jacques, who has those quali- 
fications. Later on, when my enterprise is 
fairly on its Lpgs, you can return to Jean- 
d’heurs, if you desire.” 

“You surely can’t mean what you say, un- 
de. What, you would take me from M. De- 
lorme, my best friend, who gave me shelter 
and food when I was friendless, who taught 


284 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


me all I know of the paper business-— you ask 
me to leave him and be your assistant in ruin- 
ing* his business ? If I were to do it I should 
be a base ingrate, the lowest of the low ! ” 

“ You prefer to display your ingratitude to- 
ward me,” replies my uncle, crossing his arms 
upon his chest with an injured air. “ You say 
that Delorme offered you hospitality — and I, 
what did I do, I would like to know, when you 
came knocking at my door ? Did I not open 
heart and purse to you ? Did I not give you 
as good an education as could be had in Paris ; 
did I not instill into your mind a practical knowl- 
edge of business ? I know it is not in good taste 
to twit a man with the services you have ren- 
dered him — but just look for a moment at what 
Delorme has done for you and what I have 
done; you’ll see to which side the balance in- 
clines. For five .years I stood to you not in the 
relation of guardian, but of bosom friend — of 
father ! And now, when I ask you for a trifling 
mark of confidence and affection, you give me a 
hard, cold — No. Ah!” he adds, in a tearful voice, 
raising his seemingly trembling hands toward 
heaven, “ truly I am unfortunate! I return 
from exile with a sublime idea ; fortune seems 
to smile on me ; I say to myself : I am safe — 
the haven is at hand ! And then comes a cruel, 
brutal blow, buffeting me forth again into the 
raging storm and outer darkness — and whose is 
the hand that strikes that blow ? It is the 
hand of my nephew, whom I have reared from 
childhood — my nephew, whom I have cherished 
and v adored. It is enough to break .one’s 
heart ! ” 

There is no gainsaying the fact that his 
face and manner indicate deep distress ; may 
not his grief be sincere ? It is not to be 
denied that Scipio did come to assistance 
when I first landed in Paris; I was homeless* 
and penniless ; what would have become of me 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 285 

had he shown himself as hard and pitiless as I 
am now ? Grant that he is unreliable, lighter 
than thistle-down, fickle, and an unblushing, 
selfish egotist, is that a reason why I should 
show myself unmindful of benefits conferred on 
me and dismiss his request with a brusk re- 
fusal, unsoftened by any word of explanation ? 

“Forgive me, my dear uncle / 7 I stammer, 
“and rest assured that — 77 

“No, no / 7 he says ; “do not give me your 
answer yet ; Ido not wish to extort from your 
sensibility a decision that should be the result 
of calm consideration. Take time to reflect, 
‘consult your heart — this evening will be time 
enough to let me know if your resolution still 
remains unchanged . 77 

Thereupon he walks away, and I hear a gen- 
tle feminine voice murmuring : “ Jacques ! 77 

I turn and behold my cousin Zelie, who comes 
forward to me from an arched portal that has 
been cut in the living wall of verdure. 

“ Were you there, cousin ? 77 
“Yes/ 7 " she unhesitatingly owns up; “I 
heard all that was said. Oh, Jacques ! I beg 
you do not listen to your uncle — do not again 
allow yourself to be deluded by that advent- 
urer ! 77 

“Now, Zelie, you could not have thought I 
was in doubt what to do ? 77 

“ Yes, I did think so, and M. Mouginot thinks 
so, too. I saw that you were on the point of 
yielding, and if you only knew the pain it caused 
me ! Jacques / 7 my cousin continues, “ stay here 
with us; do not go away from Jeand’heurs. 
Stay for papa’s sake — and for mine a little bit, 
as well . 77 

“ Then you would have been sorry to have me 
go away, would yoq, Zelie ? 77 

She does not answer, but her eyes become hu- 
mid again and I can see by the convulsive mo- 
tion of her throat that a storm of sobs is rising. 


286 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


“I never meant to leave you, Zelie. I could 
not be happ3 r away from here because — because 
I love you ! ” 

44 Really and truly, do you?” she exclaims. 
“And I, too, Jacques — I love you with all my 
heart.” 

“ Well, if that’s the case, why don’t you 
give each other a good kiss ? ” 

We turn in great confusion and find our- 
selves confronted by M. Delorme. He is come 
from the paper mill to ascertain what detained 
me so long in the garden. 

“You love each other,” he goes on. “I 
suspected long ago how the land lay — and so 
did my wife. I always said to her : ‘ Have 
patience ; give them time and there will come 
a day when they will straighten out matters for 
themselves.’ Remain as you are for a year and 
next spring you shall be married.” 

Nothing is seen of Scipio Mouginot during the 
day. About six o’clock, when we are all to- 
gether in the dining-room, we hear the sound 
of wheels before the house, and on looking from 
the window behold my uncle in the act of 
alighting from a public hack. A moment later 
he enters the vestibule. 

“My dear boy,” he exclaims, with that fine 
assurance which never deserts him, “I suppose 
you have reflected on the proposition I made 
you a while ago ? The carriage that is to bear 
me away from here is waiting, and I am come 
to learn .your answer.” 

“Do you answer for me, Cousin Delorme,” 
say I, turning to my father-in-law that is to be. 

“ Monsieur Scipio Mouginot,” replies the 
cousin, “ Jacques is infinitely obliged for your 
kind remembrance of him ; but he cannot leave 
Jeand’heurs for a reason which, I have no 
doubt, will appear to you perfectly valid and 
satisfactory. I have the pleasure of announc- 
ing to you the engagement of your nephew and 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


287 


my daughter Zelie. A year hence the two 
youngsters will be married, and if you are in 
the neighborhood I hope you will honor us with 
your presence at the wedding.” 

“Ah, ha!” ejaculates my uncle, in deep 
amazement, while I throw my arms about 
Mamma Delorme’s neck. This den.ouement has 
never occurred to Scipio, but he is not a man 
to remain nonplused for any great length of 
time ; and, beaming on us with one of his 
g*enial smiles : “ Accept my hearty congratula- 
tions,” he goes on, with a polite bow to the 
ladies. “ I have always had the dear boy’s 
happiness at heart, and if he would rather be 
married than be rich I have not a word to say. 
Thanks, Monsieur Delorme, for. your hospi- 
tality. Ladies, my best respects. Adieu, 
Jacques; I’ll make a fortune without your 
assistance, and perhaps some day you’ll be 
sorry ! ” 

We accompany him to the stoop. He jumps 
nimbly into the vehicle, waves his hand to us 
in a parting salute, the driver whips up his nag 
and in a twinkling carriage and traveler are lost 
to sight beneath the archway of the courtyard. 

Notwithstanding his confident assurances my 
uncle has not yet struck his vein. Six months 
after his leaving us the grand scheme of mak- 
ing paper from nettles came to naught for lack 
of subscribers to the stock, and Scipio Mougi- 
not was once more compelled to shift his gun to 
the other shoulder. About the same time we 
were informed of an event that brought dismay 
to the pharmacy of the Mouginot-Pichoins. 
That model boy, my' cousin Aristide, had not 
fulfilled the promise of his youth, and had left 
college without completing his course ; he did 
not take kindly to the study of pharmaceutical 
science, but his tastes and aptitudes seemed 
rather to incline to the exercises of the manege. 
After astonishing the staid citizens of Villotte 


288 


MY UNCLE SCIPIO. 


by his eccentric dress, his equestrian turnouts 
and his pranks at the country balls in the vi- 
cinity, he capped the climax by running- away 
with one of the lady riders of a traveling* circus, 
and Lawyer Jacobi was sent forth into the 
world to bring- back the prodig-al son. 

In accordance with my cousin Delorme’s 
wishes, Zelie and I remained engaged for a 
year, and I assure you that the time did not 
seem long to me. I was enabled to verify the 
correctness of what a German writer (Jean 
Paul Richter, I think,) says on the subject : 
“ For a young couple to become affianced early 
and marry late, it is like listening to the lark 
singing at sunrise in the heavens and eating 
him roasted at night for dinner.” Only, al- 
though we are married now, we have not killed 
our lark, and he keeps on singing for us still as 
sweetly as ever. 


THE END. 


BURNETT 

- - - AT THE - - - 

CHICAGO EXPOSITION 


WHAT THE RESTAURATEURS AND CATERERS WHO ARE TO FEED 
THE PEOPLE INSIDE THE FAIR GROUNDS THINK OF 

BURNETT’S EXTRACTS : 


Chicago, April 2d, 1893. 
Messrs. Joseph Burnett Sc Co. 

Gentlemen: Aftercareful tests and inves- 
tigation of the merits of your flavoring ex- 
tracts, we have decided to give you the 
entire order for our use, in our working 
department as well as in all our creams and 
ices, used in all of our restaurants in the 
buildings of the World’s Columbian Ex- 
position at Jackson Park. 

Very truly yours, 
WELLINGTON CATERING CO. 

By Albert S. Gage, President. 


Chicago, April 26th, 1S93 
Messrs. Joseth Burnett & Co., 

Boston and Chicago. 

Gentlemen : After careful investigation we 
have decided that Burnett’s Flavoring Ex- 
tracts are the best. We shall use them ex- 
clusively in the cakes, ice creams and 
pastries served in Banquet Hall and at New 
England Clam Bake in the World’s Fair 
Grounds. 

N. E. WOOD, Manager, 

New England Clam Bake Building. 

F. K. MCDONALD, Manager, 

Banquet Hall. 


Woman’s Building, ) 

World’s Columbian Exposition. ) 
Chicago, April 21st, 1893. 
Messrs. Joseph Burnett & Co., 

Boston and Chicago. 

Gentlemen: We take pleasure iu stating 
that Burnett’s Flavoring Extracts will 
be used exclusively in the Garden Cafe, 
Woman’s Building, World’s Columbian Ex- 
position, during the period of the World’s 
Fair. 

RILEY & LAWFORD. 


Columbia Casino Co. 

M ssrs. Joseph Burnett & Co., 

Boston and Chicago. 

Gentlemen: We take pleasure in stating 
that bun nett’s Flavoring Extracts will be 
used exclusively in the cuisine of the 
Columbia Casino Restaurant, at the 
World’s Fair Grounds, as it is our aim to 
use nothing but the best. Respectfully. 

H. A. W ENTER, Manager. 


Transportation Building, > 
World’s Columbian Exposition. £ 
Chicago, April 2f, 1893. 
Messrs. Joseth Burnett & Co. 

Gents: After careful tests and compari- 
sons we have decided to use “ Burnett’s 
Extracts” exclusively in our Ice creams, 
ices and pastry. Very respectfully, 

fcCnxP.PS & KAHN, 
Caterers for the “ Golden Gate Cafe,” 

Transportation Building. 

“TROCADERO,” 

Cor. 16th Street and Michigan Avenue. 


"The Great White Horse” Inn Co ., ) 
World’s Columbian > 
Exposition Grounds. ) 
Chicago, III., U. S. A., April 26, 1893. 
Messrs. Joseph Burnett & Co., 

Boston and Chicago. 

Gentlemen : It being our aim to use noth- 
ing but t he Lest, we have decided to use 
Burnett’s Flavoring Extracts exclusively , in 
the ice cream, cat es and pastries served in 
‘‘The Great White Horse” Inn, in the 
grounds of the W T orld’s Columbian Expo- 
sition. Very truly yours, 

T. B. SEELEY, Manager, 
“ The Great White Horse ” Inn Co. 


The Restaurants that have contracted to use Burnett’s Extracts, exclusively, 

are as follows : 


WELLINGTON CATERING CO., 
“GREAT WHITE HORSE” INN, 
THE GARDEN CAFE, 

woman’s building. 


COLUMRTA CASINO CO., 

THE GOLDEN GATE CAFE, 

NEW ENGLAND CLAM BAKE CO., 
BANQUET HALL. 


JOSEPH BURNETT & CO., BOSTON, MASS. 





**& ?!F w *W^ 

“ WORTH A GUINEA A BOX.” S 


CURE 


LIVER, ETC, I 


They Act Like Magic on the Vital Organs, 
Regulating the Secretions, restoring long lost 
Complexion, bringing back the Keen Edge of 
Appetite, and arousing with the ROSEBUD OF 
HEALTH the whole physical energy of the 
human frame. These Facts are admitted by 
thousands, in all classes of Society. Largest 
Sale in the World. 

Covered with a Tasteless Sc Soluble Coating. 

Of all druggists. Price 25 cents a box. 

New York Depot, 365 Canal St. 3 




/ 


























/V 7VW 





